


The Complicated Detour to Evolution

by PolarPanther



Category: Bleach, Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Crossover, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-02
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2019-08-16 19:19:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 58,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16501202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PolarPanther/pseuds/PolarPanther
Summary: Killing Aizen had just risen in priority. Not only was Grimmjow far from Hueco Mundo in his old Adjuchas form, but he was stuck with three retarded brats who refused to leave him alone when he had better things to do.





	1. Unknown Forest

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS: This story will
> 
> \- have major divergence from canon Naruto plot (events will be changed drastically)
> 
> \- have an absurd fixation on friendship but not have any sort of romance
> 
> \- be very crack-like
> 
> \- be in Grimmjow's PoV- expect cursing, violence, gore etc.
> 
> Ignoring these warnings and reading through will give you a headache! Or make your cry angry tears of frustration. Maybe both. You've been warned.

Grimmjow coughed wetly, hating the bitter taste of his blood and the constant throbbing pain of his wounds as he stared up with blurry eyes at the fake blue sky. He vaguely felt spiritual energies clash in the distance but he couldn't figure out who they belonged to.

Or more accurately, he couldn't concentrate enough to figure out who they belonged to.

His body didn't allow him to concentrate.

Amidst the mind-numbing pain he was in, his wounds itched. Fine sand, that had seeped in to his wounds, scraped against his flesh with every breath he took. The worst part, however, was that his shivering body refused to move. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't even get a finger to twitch.

Grimmjow wished he'd retained his high-speed regeneration from his Arrancar days. From what he could feel, his meagre spiritual energy had pooled under his wounds and only numbed some of the pain.

He gasped as a wave of mixed spiritual energy filled the air. The stone structures around him cracked, splintered and broke while the heavy spiritual pressure engulfed his body.

Just as he caught his breath, the blue sky above him, shuddered twice before it exploded in a haze of spirit particles as a mixture of Aizen's and the Hogyoku's spiritual energy emerged from his espada tattoo.

The tattoo on Grimmjow's back pulsed erratically and pulled at his spiritual energy. His sword, which had been lying on top of him, burst in to spirit particles. They enveloped him for a moment before seeping down into him through his skin and towards his tattoo.

Grimmjow howled as his skin stretched, his muscles expanded and his body lengthened even as his tattoo drained away his spiritual energy. Through the overwhelming pain, Grimmjow realised that Aizen had activated some sort of secret back-up plan.

A plan that probably screwed over every Arrancar that Aizen had ever helped create.

"Aizen, you bastard..." Grimmjow gasped as his spine elongated way past his body. He rolled on to his side and watched his hands morph in to large black paws that he never thought he'd see again. "Damn it."

He'd reverted back to his Adjuchas form.

Even so, the Espada tattoo remained, insistently draining away his spiritual energy.

But another foreign spiritual energy stirred awake within him.

A warm and distinctly human spiritual energy.

Grimmjow flinched.

The human girl's spiritual energy emerged from deep within him and clashed with the tattoo on his back. All Grimmjow remembered later was pain, incomprehensible rage and fear before every thing changed.

Loud animal cries replaced the desert's howling winds and hollow screeches. The irritating sand under him became a damp, almost comfortable, grassy ground. Thousands of scents replaced the dead emptiness of Hueco Mundo. And all traces of hollow spiritual energy around him disappeared.

Grimmjow opened an eye and stared at the large trees surrounding him.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, stifling his urge to catalogue every scent and concentrated on his spiritual energy instead.

To his relief, he only found his own spiritual energy. No one else's spiritual energy hid inside him any more. But, his spiritual energy was too low, almost miniscule. He'd never be able to open a Garganta back to Hueco Mundo.

On the plus side, being back in his Adjuchas form had kickstarted his regenerative healing.

He concentrated on his surroundings when his paws felt strong vibrations through the ground. Something, two somethings actually, were headed towards him. Grimmjow stayed still, unwilling to waste his energy needlessly going out to meet them. Soon enough a distinct salty scent heralded the approach of two humans with negligible spiritual power, meaning low spiritual energy.

Grimmjow relaxed. With their weak spiritual energy, the humans wouldn't even see him, let alone bother him.

"We've totally hit the jackpot today!" One of the humans said, "I've never seen a white jungle cat before."

Grimmjow twitched but reassured himself that the humans couldn't be talking about him.

"Really?" A slightly droll male voice said.

"Kagari, it's completely white and it doesn't have fur! Trust me, this one is going to get a fortune. If you could see, you'd say the same thing too," The boy said, and the vibrations from his footsteps increased. "The rich bastards will pay a fortune to have this one in their collection."

Irritated at the human's bold invasion of his space and confused that weak humans could see him, Grimmjow opened one eye and glared, carefully noting the human's dull brown clothes and the odd metal mask that covered his mouth. The boy who'd been inches away from him immediately stopped and eyed him warily.

"Damn it! Looks like he's not completely dead yet," The boy said, a little fear lacing his voice.

Grimmjow felt proud that he'd inspired fear without even moving or making a sound.

The other boy, who stood out of Grimmjow's line of sight, just scoffed. "I can't feel any chakra from it, so it'll die in a few minutes. You know how dumb these wild beasts are. They act intimidating to hide their weakness. Just kill it and get it so we can leave."

Grimmjow snarled at being called weak by a pathetic human.

"Shit! What the hell?" The boy in front of him took a cautious step back. "I think it understands us... maybe it's a nin-animal."

The other boy silently entered Grimmjow's line of sight. He was shorter than the first boy and he moved gracefully even though his eyes were covered with a strip of cloth. "Don't be ridiculous! It's probably just trying to scare you off to stay safe. Besides, no ninja would abandon a useful nin-animal."

Grimmjow ignored the pain encompassing his body even as he healed sluggishly and forced himself to stand. His legs almost buckled but he stayed upright.

Both the humans tensed, pulled out odd knife-like weapons and assumed defensive stances.

"What? Is the dumb beast scaring you?" Grimmjow said, ignoring how his throat struggled with every word. "Planning on running away?"

The first boy said, "Shit! It is a nin-animal!"

"You should have just killed it instead of waiting for it to wake up completely."

"Hey fuckers! Who said you could ignore me when I'm talking to you?" Grimmjow said, suddenly quite eager to rip the humans to shreds. He watched curiously as the blindfolded boy moved his hands, gathered spiritual energy around his fingers and immediately changed it in to something else. When the boy's hands stopped moving, the the newly created energy disappeared and an unusual purple mist filled the air.

Grimmjow breathed it in and coughed up blood. Years of having to deal with Syazel told him that he'd just been poisoned, but he could already feel it being slowly purged away by his regenerative healing.

"See, it's just a dumb animal not a nin-animal," the blindfolded boy said haughtily, "It doesn't even know to avoid normal ninjutsu. Go collect it's body, so we can meet up with Oboro." With a snort, he left the clearing.

Grimmjow snickered and jumped at the boy who'd stayed behind. With a snarl, he pushed the boy to the ground and clamped down on his shoulder till his teeth scraped against bone, confident that he'd nicked an important artery in the process if the spray of warm blood was anything to go by.

The boy screamed, at a painfully high pitch, and stabbed blindly at Grimmjow but the hard plates on his body deflected the weapon easily.

"Mubi!" The blindfolded boy had returned. He threw a handful of needle like weapons at the open wounds on Grimmjow's back with unnerving accuracy.

Every needle that pierced his old wounds left Grimmjow slightly woozy, but he didn't release the boy's shoulder. Instead, he became curious when his captive's spiritual energy increased exponentially and filled the air.

"Hold on Mubi! I'll get it off you," the blindfolded boy said and noisily pulled out more weapons.

Grimmjow looked up when the weapons cut through the air noisily but scoffed when he saw the oddly shaped knife from before heading his way with a paper stuck to it.

The knife's edge barely scratched his plate armour before falling away. But the paper glowed. And inexplicably with a rush of heat, an explosion scorched his side and cracked a good portion of his leg armour.

"Bet you weren't expecting that were you, stupid cat?"

Grimmjow snarled at the smug blindfolded boy ready to retort, but the spiritual energy of his captive peaked. Grimmjow instinctively realized that the boy's soul was struggling to stay inside the weakened human body.

With a pained exhale and a burst of spiritual energy, the boy stopped breathing.

"Mubi! Damn it!"

Grimmjow ignored the exploding projectiles thrown at him, released the dead boy's shoulder and looked up when he heard the rattle of a soul chain. The boy's soul knelt in front of him looking down at his own body in shock and horror.

"What… what happened to me?" the boy tugged at the chain on his chest. "What did you do to me you stupid cat?"

Grimmjow, probably delirious with pain from the continued explosions and his old wounds jumped forward and used his meagre spiritual energy to grab on to the screaming soul. With a frenzied rush of hunger, he swallowed the soul completely.

When he came to his senses, Grimmjow laughed as his limbs moved a little bit smoother. Even his wounds stung a little less as his spiritual power level actually increased by a tiny bit. "Of course! Human souls are spiritual energy as well."

"Souls are weaker than hollows. Maybe if I eat enough and make my spiritual power rise, I could evolve in to a Vaste Lorde just like I planned to do before Aizen came along!" Grimmjow dodged a wave of weapons and said, "But why can you humans see me? Does this mean I no longer only have a spiritual body?"

The blindfolded boy got angrier, probably confused from not understanding Grimmjow's muttering, and his throws became sloppier.

Grimmjow unsheathed his claws and said, "Weaklings like you should know their place. At least, you and your useless friend had some use at the very end."

It took a few minutes of incessant mocking and sloppy dodging against the explosives, but Grimmjow pinned the boy down and forced his soul out triumphantly.

-x-x-x-x-x-

After consuming the two human souls, Grimmjow moved far away to get away from the overwhelming smell of the bodies. He had just settled down in a comfortable patch of grass, hoping his healing would speed up with the spiritual energy he'd obtained, when an overwhelming scent of fox and high spiritual energy filled the air.

Multiple tree branches creaked somewhere above him and Grimmjow frowned as two other distinct scents joined the first. Three humans had stopped somewhere above him, all with very interesting spiritual power.

"Whoa! What the heck happened to that cat?" a very young and loud male voice asked.

"Naruto! That's not just a cat!" an equally loud female voice replied, sounding irritated.

"Those are weapon marks. You think one of the other teams hurt it for fun or something?" The first loud voice said, with just a tinge of fear and disgust in his voice.

Grimmjow stayed silent, for the first time willing to be patient to gain information from his talkative human visitors as he healed slowly.

Branches closer above him creaked and Grimmjow breathed in the other two scents. One smelt vaguely like a mix of fire and blood. The other smelt like the forest itself, too full of life.

Another softer, less emotionally charged male voice said,"Who cares? We don't have time to waste on it. We still need to create a password in case we get separated again."

Grimmjow snorted softly in amusement, when he heard the tinge of uneasiness in that unemotional voice.

"But... we can't just leave it there like that," the first voice said.

"Naruto," the female said, "I don't think it'll appreciate us bothering it especially if other ninja hurt it in the first place."

Grimmjow's healing sped up slightly as he analysed each of his three visitor's unique spiritual energies. The one that smelt like fox had two types of spiritual energy- human and an overflowing non-human one. The one that smelt like forest also had two sources of weak spiritual energy but both were human. The last one's spiritual energy was strong even though it was human. But all their spiritual energy levels fluctuated constantly as it combined with something else.

"Besides, I don't think we have enough medical supplies to patch it up properly," the female said softly.

The unemotional voice said, "I've decided on our password."

"Sasuke, you idiot. How can you just ignore..." The loud male sounded angry.

"We can't afford to get distracted by an animal. Or did you forget that there are ninja trying to kill us?"

"Fine," the loud one said, "What's the password?"

"The nin song 'Nin machine'..." Grimmjow zoned out as the boy talked and concentrated on moving his spiritual energy to heal his scorched side first. Minutes later, he opened his eyes and stood, flexing his leg experimentally.

The three humans above him held their breaths cautiously and Grimmjow laughed. "If you didn't want to be noticed, you should have been quieter, idiots."

"Damn it Naruto!"

The loud one protested. "It can't be my fault completely."

Grimmjow looked up, taking in their appearance in surprise. They were brats. Short brats. The fox-smelling loud one was blonde and wore a blinding orange. A black-haired boy seemed like a failed Ulquiorra and the female looked like a saner Syazel with longer hair.

"You three are different from the previous two." Grimmjow assessed their spiritual energy again and said, "Your spiritual power levels are better than theirs... If I eat you three, then I'll regain my strength sooner. So I'll start with you, little fox-brat."

The orange-clad boy flinched back, and Grimmjow would have laughed and added to the boy's apparent fear, but his ears twitched in warning as he jumped up high. A split second later, thick gusts of snake-scented wind hurled his backwards through rough foliage and finally slammed him against a tree.

As he slid down the tree, the healing gashes on his back reopened as the bark scraped against his still broken armour. Wood splinters dug in to the sensitive flesh of his wounds and hindered his already slow healing.

Grimmjow stood and sniffed the air around him. The scent of snake lingered on the branches that had been pushed back with him but through it all he caught the the fox-brat's scent coming from a different direction.

Grimmjow followed the scent, irritated that his potential meal had been interrupted and his prey had been stolen away so easily. He jumped over large roots, dashed through prickly bushes that snagged on his already irritated wounds and landed in a clearing just in time to see the fox-brat get devoured by a large snake.

"How dare you steal my prey?" Grimmjow roared in anger, jumped up and dug his claws in to the thick scaly hide. The snake hissed and darted it's head to and fro trying to bite and dislodge Grimmjow off it's body.

Even hindered by his wounds, Grimmjow easily dodged it's repeated strikes and clawed different areas of it's large body. When the snake's body shuddered violently, Grimmjow jumped to a tree branch in confusion just as the snake's body expanded comically. But with a final shudder, the bloated snake exploded outwards in a shower of blood, guts and orange-clad fox-brats.

Grimmjow hissed as some of the blood seeped in to his open wounds.

The group of orange-clad brats remained for a split second before most of them disappeared in a puff of smoke leaving behind only one blood-soaked and rancid smelling fox-brat who looked at him and said, "Ah! The hungry cat!"

"What did you do?"

The brat had the audacity to act confused. "I defeated the snake?"

Grimmjow snarled. "Stupid brat! How did you manage to defeat that?"

"With my super awesome skills?" The brat didn't seem scared of him any more and said, "You were trying to kill it too! I heard you when I was inside."

"It was stealing my prey!"

But the brat ignored him and looked around with a worried expression. "Oh no! Sakura-chan? Sasuke?" With an apologetic look at Grimmjow, the boy said, "Thanks for helping me, Hungry cat, but I have to find my friends now."

Before Grimmjow could attack or reply, the brat left.

Grimmjow growled and followed after the boy, irritated that at being ignored as a threat. He discerned the sounds of battle and sped up recognized the snake-scent in the air. He entered the clearing and saw the fox-brat stop a large snake with his body. Grimmjow took a deep breath and yelled, "Hey snake-breath! Just whose prey are you trying to steal?"

The effeminate man, whose spiritual energy outclassed all three brats, looked down from the top of the large snake and scoffed in amusement. "A jungle cat?"

Grimmjow pulled his spiritual energy away from his healing wounds, gathered it in to his mouth and roared. He frowned when instead of being blown apart, the snake's body only obtained deep bleeding gouges.

The fox-brat whooped in delight. "All right, Hungry cat!"

Grimmjow resisted his urge to attack the brat first and jumped on to the newly injured snake, ignoring his blurring vision and the numbness of his back legs.

With a slight momentary spike of spiritual energy, multiple orange-clad brats attacked the man. While Grimmjow felt irritated at the interruption, the effeminate man merely opened his mouth and got rid of the attackers in one swoop via an elongated tongue.

Grimmjow jumped and clamped down on the man's arm triumphantly tasting blood.

The man didn't make a sound.

Grimmjow pulled his meager spirit energy in to his mouth, forming something that vaguely resembled a very weak cero and detonated it at point blank range.

Through the overwhelming scent of blood and burnt skin, the man merely snorted. He opened his mouth again and the long tongue wrapped around Grimmjow's neck and pulled him away from his mangled arm.

With a condescending smirk, the man threw Grimmjow aside and said, "Now that one interruption has been dealt with."

Grimmjow growled as his injured back met a tree trunk yet again.

"Hungry cat!"

"It's time to deal with the other one." The man laughed, a sharp cackle that oozed mockery.

The last thing Grimmjow saw before he finally gave in to darkness was the fox-brat screaming in pain.


	2. Unwanted Debt

Angry sounds of battle, metal clashing together and loud yells prodded Grimmjow awake. There was a momentary lapse of confusion before memories of his defeat against that effeminate snake-smelling man made him open his eyes.

He blinked at the dark wood surrounding him and stared at the thin haze of spiritual energy floating around his face. Noticing an odd lingering sensation in his mouth, he moved his tongue around and frowned at the taste of foreign mixed spiritual energy in his mouth and the back of his throat.

Spiritual energy that matched what was floating around his head. He traced the energy's trail backwards with his eyes and saw it rising from an unconscious human. Grimmjow sniffed and recognized the scents of the two male brats he'd wanted to kill.

Both brats were unconscious.

But their high and unique spiritual power from before was almost non-existent. In fact, it was worse than the two humans he'd killed in the forest earlier.

Grimmjow stood, ignoring the throbs of pain that signalled his injuries still hadn't healed, and followed the diminishing trail of spiritual energy to a spot on the black-haired boy's neck. He shuffled closer and stared at the small tattoo there, intrigued that it was actually spewing something alongside the spiritual energy. He assessed the energy, wondering how he'd unconsciously separated the spiritual energy from that and absorbed it.

Grimmjow couldn't recall ever having done anything like that before. Then again, he couldn't recall much of his mundane daily life before becoming an Arrancar in Aizen's army.

He growled when he recognized tiny traces of the snake-man's energy swirling above the tattoo.

Between the spaces of the tree roots, Grimmjow saw movement but he concentrated on the unconscious boys, wondering why they felt so different. So weak.

Hardly worth killing and eating, if their weak spiritual power readings were anything to go by.

A flash of bright colour from his legs made him look down. A red strip of cloth coiled around his leg all the way down to his paw. He leaned down, sniffed at the red cloth and caught the familiar scent of forest and too much life. Noticing the lack of irritation and itching around his wounds, Grimmjow realized that the person who'd bandaged him had also cleaned out his wounds.

He turned and stared at the various make-shift bandages crisscrossing his back, hiding his wounds from sight. Grimmjow scrutinized his own spiritual power, noting that less than a quarter of his entire spiritual energy had been replenished, and calculated that he'd been out for a few hours at least.

An angry scream roused Grimmjow from his musings. He scoffed at himself, irritated at ignoring a battle to think about non-battle related things.

Grimmjow looked beyond the two boys, through the small gap between the tree roots and saw a bunch of humans fighting. Although he couldn't detect the snake-person's presence there, Grimmjow had no intention of ignoring the fight.

He jumped over the two unconscious bodies and walked out through the small opening in the tree roots just as a red clad body flew to his side and slammed against the tree roots.

Grimmjow stared at the girl curiously. She was bruised, beaten and looked even more like Syazel with her shortened pink hair as she forced herself to stand. But Grimmjow concentrated on her torn red clothes.

He looked down at his leg and the red cloth tied around it with an irritated resignation before looking up and examining the pink-haired girl's attackers. Two of them, a girl and boy, stood directly opposite him while a third hunchbacked one stood off to the side. All three, who'd paused in surprise at his appearance, wore dull clothes with matching snake-patterned scarfs around their necks which immediately brought back memories of his loss against the snake-man.

Fuelled by his anger, Grimmjow pulled his spiritual energy and roared at the two attackers directly in front of him. The girl flew back without any resistance and slammed in to a tree. The wood cracked behind her and blood trickled out of her mouth. But the spiky-haired boy who'd been beside her just laughed and stayed in his place.

Grimmjow tilted his head to the side. "Looks like you'll be interesting before you die, at least." He pooled some spiritual energy in to his paws and jumped. He covered the large distance with a single jump and knocked down the boy who'd been about to retort.

The boy fell back with a yelp of surprise, but immediately raised his hands.

The was a clash of metal behind him and Pink-hair, a name that Grimmjow thought was conveniently suitable, yelled, "I won't let you!"

Grimmjow snorted and looked down at the boy he was holding. He moved his large paw and pushed down on the boy's right hand. Bone snapped and splintered easily.

The boy gasped but defiantly raised his other hand to Grimmjow's midsection. Grimmjow barely registered the increase in spiritual energy before a strong gust of wind pushed him backwards and off the boy.

Grimmjow landed a few feet back and studied the boy, who was pushing himself up, curiously. He noticed the small metallic hole in the boy's palm. "So that's how you're manipulating the wind."

The boy just snarled back, raised his arm and released a stronger gust of wind.

Grimmjow forcefully pulled a large amount spiritual energy and roared. His energy collided with the gust of wind and both attacks cancelled each other.

"Dosu, don't interfere! Just deal with the Uchiha." He gasped heavily and raised his uninjured hand again. "We mustn't fail Orochimaru-sama."

Grimmjow roared again, pouring his spiritual energy in a specific way, and huffed when the boy fell back with large bleeding gashes all over his body.

"Zaku!"

"This is boring," Grimmjow said and jumped forward. "I thought you'd be more of a challenge." He crushed the prone boy's throat, maintaining his grip till the boy's spiritual energy spiked and he heard the rattle of a soul chain.

Skipping his usual victory celebrations, Grimmjow hungrily pounced on to the newly freed soul. He swallowed the soul, revelling in the slight increase of his spiritual power level and looked around, searching for the other two attackers.

The hunchbacked boy, who was heavily bandaged, picked the unconscious girl and looked at Grimmjow with barely concealed anger. "We'll leave your team. You can have our earth scroll."

"Wait!" Pink-hair came forward, grabbed the scroll that had been thrown and stood beside Grimmjow. "Why did Orochimaru give Sasuke that mark?"

"I don't know," the boy said, "We were just ordered to kill Sasuke. But since he hasn't woken up by now, we're probably not even necessary for that job."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

He just shot her a look, grabbed his dead teammate's body clumsily and disappeared from the clearing.

Grimmjow growled, ready to tear after them, but paused when his body strained to move. He assessed his spiritual power and groaned. Even though he'd only used weak attacks, the little spiritual energy he'd managed to replenish was gone.

Pink-hair turned to Grimmjow, her eyes more grateful than afraid as she glanced back at the little hideout beneath the tree roots.

"We're even now, stupid brat," Grimmjow said.

Because that's what she was, a stupid weak brat, who'd cleaned and bandaged his injuries instead of leaving him to die. Grimmjow turned, heading in the direction where he smelt other humans hiding in fear.

"Wait!" Pink-hair yelled.

He turned back to her with a snarl as the hiding humans took the chance to run. "What?"

She flinched. "Your wounds... you won't be able to take care of those. So you can't just leave." She seemed surprised by her own words.

Knowing that his regenerative healing had kicked in, even though it was absurdly slow, Grimmjow turned away once again.

"Don't... don't you want to know about that man from before?"

Grimmjow paused. He had actually been interested in finding the snake-man. But since the brats were alive, the snake-man was most probably dead.

The girl seemed to gain some courage. "He's not dead."

Grimmjow repeated in confusion. "Not dead?"

"The person you... killed here. He was sent by that man."

Grimmjow turned to side just as a tree branch creaked.

A boy stood and looked down at their clearing, but he just looked down angrily. Another human, a girl with an odd hairstyle, crouched beside him on the same branch and said, "Lee!"

She jumped down and moved towards a spot of green that Grimmjow hadn't noticed before and pulled up an unconscious boy who had no noticable spiritual energy.

Pink-hair moved forward shakily and said, "His eardrums were ruptured by the sound-nin's attack."

The new girl looked in their direction in confusion. "Sound-nin?"

"They won't pass this test. They've lost a team member."

"I see." The girl shot a look to the boy who still stood on the branch and then shook the green-clad boy vigorously. "Lee! You idiot, wake up. Just how long do you plan on keeping Neji and me waiting?"

Amazingly, the boy actually woke up. "Tenten? What…Oh no! Sakura-san."

Pink-hair moved forward and bowed. "Lee-san, thank you very much for your help."

The boy looked at his hands sadly. "I don't think I did much to help you."

"No! You did, really..."

"For fuck's sake!" Grimmjow growled, annoyed by everything he'd had to go through since ending up in the forest. Nothing made any sense.

Pink-hair turned to him with barely concealed panic.

"Tenten, Lee, we've wasted enough time. Let's go." And with a slight huff, the boy on the tree branch turned and jumped away.

Grimmjow watched them leave, wondering if he should have just killed them and eaten their weak souls. "Stupid Aizen, sending me to this fucked up forest without..."

"Err..." Pink-hair interrupted him, her voice soft and fearful. "You're not attacking anyone."

"Killing weaklings is a waste of energy. I only want the strong ones now." Grimmjow stared at her. "You know about that snake-guy from before."

She nodded.

"Then if you lead me to him and other strong people I can kill, I'll spare you weaklings." He eyed the scroll in her hand and said, "Does that scroll lead to strong people?"

"Ah! We need to get two scrolls so that we can get out this forest and pass this exam." Pink-hair explained about the exam to get promoted as they walked back to the tree roots.

"Fail if you lose just one teammate, huh?" Grimmjow snorted in amusement.

She turned to him. "Did you..."

"I'm sure I killed two that belonged to the same team before." Grimmjow laughed when he smelt her fear returned as they entered the space under the tree roots.

After she checked on her teammates, Pink-hair said, "Do you have a name?"

He looked at her, wondering if she was being serious.

"I'm Sakura."

Grimmjow snorted. "As if I care."

"This is Sasuke-ku... Sasuke," She pointed to the black-haired boy who had the curious mark on his neck. "And this is Naruto." She pointed to the blonde. "We're Team seven."

Even though he wanted to ignore her, Grimmjow huffed. "Seven? You're so weak?"

The girl blinked. "It's not our rank. It's just our name."

"Shitty name since it sounds so weak," Grimmjow said blandly. "But it suits you three weaklings anyway. Even more reason not to waste my time eating you."

The girl frowned at him, her cautious fear of him seemingly replaced with irritation. Then she looked at the two boys and herself and wilted.

Grimmjow stretched his tail, glad for the silence as his body struggled to heal with the little spiritual energy he had.

The girl interrupted the silence. "So, don't you have a name?"

Grimmjow didn't answer and pointedly ignored her, hoping she'd shut up. She opened her mouth once again, and Grimmjow opened his own mouth, ready to threaten her but the blonde boy, fox-brat, sat up with a large gasp.

He looked around wildly for a moment, relaxed as he caught sight of the girl. "Sakura-chan, you're okay." Then he drowsily noticed Grimmjow. "Hungry cat?" And his blue eyes widened. "Hungry cat! You're alive!"

Grimmjow tackled the boy angrily, pushed his front paws on the boy's chest and glared. "Who the fuck do you think you're calling hungry cat, you stupid brat! My name is Grimmjow."

The boy blinked up at him, his eyes still sleepy and said, "You're really hungry, huh?"

Pink-hair yelled, her voice high and fearful. "Naruto! You idiot."

Grimmjow growled and unsheathed his claws drawing blood from the brat's cheeks. The boy yelped. Grimmjow sniffed at the brat's orange jacket critically. "That snake-guy really made you weaker as well. Eating you now would be a waste when I know what you were originally like."

Fox-brat looked confused. "As well? What..." He turned, noticed the unconscious black-haired boy. "Sasuke? Sakura-chan, what happened? Your hair and..."

The girl stayed silent.

"What does it look like, retard? You brats lost."

"We lost?" Fox-brat turned to Grimmjow. "Even you?"

Grimmjow growled in annoyance.

"Naruto! He was injured even before that fight with Orochimaru."

"Orochimaru?"

The unconscious black-haired boy groaned, opened feverish looking eyes and scratched at the mark on his neck. The two brats immediately rushed to his side, held his arms away from his neck till he calmed down and asked them what happened.

Pink-hair immediately explained everything that had happened with the snake-man and the team he'd sent after them.

Grimmjow stared at the black-haired boy critically. "That mark was supposed to make him powerful?"

All three brats turned to him, looking startled that he had spoken. But Pink-hair nodded, "I think so."

"That's stupid. He feels weaker than before." Grimmjow huffed. "If he had become stronger, I would have eaten him."

Bratty-black -Grimmjow took great pleasure in naming the Ulquiorra-wannabe that- frowned but looked at the other two seriously. "We need to move."

The other two just nodded, helped his up and within minutes they were out of the clearing.

Grimmjow wondered why he was following the brats. A part of him just wanted to kill them, eat their weak souls and hunt other humans till he had the power to open a Garganta back to Hueco Mundo.

But he'd felt their initial spiritual power and it really would be a waste to eat them when they were weakened.

Plus he had to deal with that snake-man, Orochimaru.

When they stopped by a flowing river, Grimmjow shuffled down and watched the brats for a few minutes until he closed his eyes in boredom. Grimmjow frowned when a large silver fish fell on the gravel in front of him. Fox-brat grinned and placed the remaining fish by their small crackling fire.

Grimmjow opened his mouth to explain that he didn't need to eat actual food. But the smell of the fish permeated his senses tantalizingly. Curiously, he bit the fish and ripped it's flesh up viciously. With a few chews, he swallowed the meat wondering why he felt less irritable even though his spiritual energy was still low.

"About that," Pink-hair's voice reached his ears. "Grimmjow killed two genin from a single team. There's a chance that their scroll is still on their dead bodies."

"That's highly unlikely!" Bratty-black said, "Their remaining team-mate could have had the scroll. Or the examiners took it when they disposed the bodies. Other teams could have already found the dead bodies and searched."

"We should still check. We aren't in the best shape for any fights. Besides it's still only the second day of the exam."

Grimmjow snorted loudly.

The brats turned to him in wary confusion.

"You've lit a fire and you're cooking food," Grimmjow said, "I thought you were purposely calling challengers here to fight them."

The three brats looked at each other and then stared at the fire.

"I guess we need to move?" Fox-brat said. "Let's split up and..."

"We're not splitting up," Pink-hair said, her face serious as she looked at them.

"But Sakura-chan, we'd waste time..."

"We're going together and that's final," she said, her spiritual energy rising enough to make Grimmjow pay attention. Then she flinched, pinched the bridge of her nose and got rid of the spiritual energy. "Grimmjow, can you take us to the place where you...the sooner we get out of here, the sooner you can find Orochimaru, right?"

Her team-mates stared at her.

Grimmjow snorted and turned away, searching for and following the old dim scent of salty water. He ran forward, wondering yet again if it was really necessary to stick with the brats. Sure they provided him with information in this unknown place. And staying with them improved his survival rate until he regained his energy.

Grimmjow sighed and ran faster, not bothering to check if the injured brats kept up, and reached the clearing where he'd first ended up. The bodies were still there, covered with loud buzzing insects as dried blood decorated most of the clearing.

A tree branch creaked, signalling one of the brats had kept up with him. There was a muffled gasp and a puff of smoke. "Tell Sakura-chan and Sasuke to wait. I'll search for the scroll," Fox-brat said.

Grimmjow turned back just in time to see another Fox-brat salute and head back the way they came.

Looking rather pale, Fox-brat jumped down and searched the bodies. Minutes later, he pulled up a blood-stained scroll, stared at it in disbelief before smiling and jumping on to a tree branch. "Let's get out of here."

The other two brats looked at the scroll in equal disbelief for a few minutes before they relaxed and headed towards the centre of the forest.

Other than a few giant insects, their long trek through the forest was uneventful. They travelled slowly through the night with few breaks and reached the tower at daybreak.

They entered the building through one of the doors, only to find it empty.

"I think we need to open the scrolls," Pink-hair said after staring up at the large paper on the wall.

Grimmjow watched curiously as both the scrolls spewed out smoke and wondered if that signalled another fight.

"Naruto, Sakura, throw those scrolls away!"

The scrolls clattered noisily as they fell to the far side of the room and covered that entire area with smoke. Then a sandled foot stepped forward out of the smoke.

"Iruka-sensei?" Fox-brat grinned.

The man in front of them smiled but blinked in confusion as he caught sight of Grimmjow. "What..."

"He's our new team-member."

"Like fuck I am," Grimmjow said.

Fox-brat actually laughed. "He's just hungry, Iruka-sensei!"

Grimmjow pulled his spiritual energy and roared at the boy, thrilled when the boy fell back with a pained grunt but annoyed that his own spiritual power dropped even lower. The man flinched and turned to the other two brats worriedly.

Bratty-black shrugged but didn't protest or move away from Grimmjow's side.

Pink-hair just said, "Naruto! Stop irritating Grimmjow. You know he's injured."

"He's not the only one." Fox-brat sighed. "Did we pass Iruka-sensei?"

The man nodded. "Yes, and it's only the third day. You three did really well."

None of the brats seemed to believe him as they stared at each other.

"I'm surprised you three aren't asking me about the scrolls and the meaning of the words up there," he said and pointed to the large paper stuck to the wall.

Grimmjow tuned out the man's lecture and assessed his spiritual energy yet again. It was still uselessly weak leaving him in no position to fight.

Pink-hair's voice cut through his irritated thoughts as she asked, "Can we see Kakashi-sensei?"

The man looked slightly worried. "Since the exam doesn't officially finish till the day after tomorrow..."

The three brats shared a look.

"But I'm sure I can get him here as long as you keep his visit a secret," he said, looking enthusiastic all of a sudden. "Come on, I'll take you to one of the free rooms where you can rest up."

Fox-brat kept a steady stream of chatter as they walked through empty hallways and climbed up rickety metal stairs.

When they stopped, the man pushed open a metal door and ushered them all in to a small room that had a large bed and a chair. "No one will disturb you here. Try to get some rest, okay? I'll send Kakashi-san up here as soon as I can."

When the brats stood by the door uncomfortably, Grimmjow jumped on to the bed and kneaded the mattress with his paws until it felt right. With a slight huff, he dropped down and closed his eyes, eager to fall asleep completely sure that the brats wouldn't attack him.

"Grimmjow?"

Grimmjow opened one eye wearily and looked at Pink-hair, wondering if she was going to bore him with more talking.

"I have to change your bandages."

Grimmjow growled at her in irritation.

She didn't seem intimidated. "It's not like you'll have to do anything. I'm not even asking you to move."

Fox-brat climbed on to the mattress beside him and said, "Grimmjow, are you afraid of bandages?"

"Naruto!"

Grimmjow opened his other eye and glared at the boy. "I'm not afraid of anything."

The boy stared at him with wide blue eyes. "Really?"

Grimmjow raised his head as he felt a tightly reigned spiritual power appear beyond the door. The brats around him tensed at his movement and eyed the door cautiously.

A tall man, with grey hair and a covered face that only left one eye visible, opened the door and examined all three brats.

Fox-brat yelled with relief. "Kakashi-sensei!"

"So you three passed." Then the man turned to Grimmjow and assessed him. "And..."

"Kakashi," the black-haired brat interrupted the man, pulled his shirt collar down and pointed to the black mark on his neck. "Some creepy bastard put this on me and it's making me weak. Fix it."

The man in front of them blinked. "That…what?"

Fox-brat sighed. "Sheesh, Kakashi-sensei, we haven't even told you about the other stuff that snake-guy did to us."

"Orochimaru," the pink-haired girl said. "The man who attacked us was Orochimaru."

The man seemed at a loss for words. "What else did he…Orochimaru do?"

"He did something to my chakra," Fox-brat hesitated. "Grimmjow said I'm weaker too because of whatever he did."

"Grimmjow?"

All three brats sighed in annoyance.

"Why are you concentrating on Grimmjow? He's not the one that attacked us!" The girl said.

Grimmjow closed his eyes again and snorted in amusement. He wondered how the brats had conveniently forgotten that he'd wanted to eat them when they'd seemed powerful and useful to improving his spiritual power level.

"Right." The man coughed awkwardly. "So Sasuke, you don't want that mark on you?"

Bratty-black scoffed and his chair creaked noisily. "Haven't you been listening? I don't want something that's weakening me. Get it off of me."

"I'm just making sure I heard you correctly."

Grimmjow absently wondered why the man sounded so incredulous.

"Okay Naruto, now what exactly happened to you?"

Fox-breath shuffled noisily and the mattress dipped slightly. "Orochimaru hit me here, it burned and I passed out..."

Their teacher sucked in a deep breath. "Have you felt any different?"

"My chakra is acting funny."

"And Sakura?" the man said after a few minutes.

Pink-hair hesitated for a moment and her hands shook slightly as she tied the bandage on Grimmjow's back. "I'm fine. Orochimaru didn't do anything to me."

"Sakura..."

She sighed. "When Sasuke and Naruto were both unconscious, some genin said that Orochimaru had ordered them to kill Sasuke. But because of Lee-san and Grimmjow, things turned out all right."

"I see." The man sighed. "Now, about Grimmjow..."

The girl interrupted the man as she tied Grimmjow's final bandage. "He wants to eat Orochimaru."

There was a long silence before the man sighed heavily and said, "Of course he does."

Grimmjow snorted and drifted asleep, idly realizing that no one had commented about his hollow hole, even as the mattress dipped again and the fox-brat loud voice filled his ears.


	3. Unusual Weakness

"But he hasn't woken up even once the entire time. Maybe something is really wrong with him."

"There's nothing wrong with him, Naruto." An exasperated female voice said, "He's just healing. His wounds have already closed up since he fell asleep."

"But still..." The first voice, that Grimmjow finally recognized as that annoying Fox-brat from before, said.

"Don't talk so loud." A slightly sleepy male voice said, "You'll wake him."

Fox-brat snorted. "As if! When Kakashi-sensei put that seal on you, Grimmjow didn't even move when you screamed like a girl."

Grimmjow opened his eyes slightly but kept his breathing even, and examined himself and his surroundings. The mattress under him had sunk down enough for him to know that he'd been there a very long time even though his spiritual energy was annoyingly low.

Pink-hair sat crouched on the floor, her arms folded over drawn-up knees. Bratty-black sat slumped on the wooden chair while Fox-brat stood by the door.

"And even when we put you next to him, Grimmjow still didn't wake up."

Grimmjow stifled a growl, struggling to maintain his facade of sleep.

But bratty-black didn't bother.

Pink-hair looked at the boy unrepentantly. "You calmed down when we put you there."

Bratty-black didn't look satisfied. "Why are we keeping him with us?"

The other two brats shared a look. "He's eager to go after Orochimaru," Pink-hair said. "So we won't have to deal with either of them after us. Besides, when Hokage-sama checked on Naruto last night..."

Fox-brat rubbed his abdomen absently and continued. "He wasn't bothered with Grimmjow after seeing you sleeping there. Even Kakashi-sensei stopped nagging us about Grimmjow."

Bratty-black stared at them in irritation.

"More importantly, we realized they knew about Orochimaru," Pink-hair said.

Grimmjow perked up and Bratty-black looked more interested.

Pink-hair huffed. "They didn't say anything but it's obvious they knew him when they looked at that mark."

"Yeah." Fox-brat said, "They're hiding things from us."

"It's not fair! After he bit you, he said…well, it's obvious that man isn't going to just leave you. " Pink-hair clenched her arm tightly and said, "How can we be stronger against if we don't know anything?"

The boys looked at her.

"Sakura-chan, don't..." Fox-brat said.

"I promise I'll be stronger next time." She stared at them. "Three is better than two, right?"

Bratty-black frowned. "I don't need you two butting in and..."

"Too bad." Fox-brat interrupted. "Sakura and me decided on a lot of things when you were snoring."

"What..."

This time Pink-hair cut him off. "We were all attacked. So, he isn't just your enemy."

Grimmjow opened his eyes completely and said, "Are you three brats trying to steal my prey?"

All traces of seriousness in the room vanished as the brats turned to the bed with a mix of curiosity, relief and worried anticipation.

"Grimmjow!" Fox-brat opened a box noisily, rushed to the bed and dropped a large something on to the mattress. "Look, I got you a huge fish. Those annoying proctors didn't want to give me..."

Grimmjow tuned out the boy's words, ignored the fish pointedly and stretched on the mattress, glad when the sheet that had been on him fell back easily. His muscles stretched, his bones popped and his tail cut through the air easily.

Grimmjow purred in satisfaction. Even though his spiritual power was useless at the moment, he was physically fit for a fight. He turned to Bratty-black. "So, that _man_ , Orochimaru, is after you. Interesting."

Pink-hair answered him, her voice steady even though she smelt fearful. "He is. That's the perfect reason to stay with us, right?"

Grimmjow chewed thoughtfully and then twitched at the recognizable taste of raw fish in his mouth. "Damn it! When the hell did I start eating this?"

"Don't worry, Grimmjow! I got another fish here," Fox-brat said and held up a larger silver fish.

"Stop fucking distracting me with shitty food that I don't even need to eat."

"But Grimmjow," Fox-brat looked at him seriously. "Everyone feels better after they eat properly."

"I'm a hollow, you stupid shit. I don't need to eat that crap to feel better."

"Hollow?" Fox-brat turned to the other two humans. "Is that another kind of jungle cat?"

"Stupid, I'm not some useless animal. Doesn't the presence of the large hole on my back tell you anything?"

"What hole?" Fox-brat gasped and his eyes widened in horror. "I knew it."

Grimmjow grinned in satisfaction.

"Sakura-chan, Grimmjow isn't healed at all. He's hydrating."

"Hallucinating, you moron," Bratty-black said. "And he's obviously just messing with you."

Grimmjow turned to point at his hollow hole, only to stare in disbelief at his complete armoured back. "That bastard Aizen! Just what the fuck did he do to me?"

A loud series of metal bells made all of them tense up. Grimmjow turned around, still confused about his missing hollow hole, but unwilling to be distracted by it when he was still in unknown territory.

"Finally!" Fox-brat said and moved to the door, "The exam is over. Let's get out of here. Maybe the fresh air will make Grimmjow better."

As soon as Fox-brat opened the door, a puff of smoke cleared away to show an older man.

"You're that annoying examiner guy!" Fox-brat said.

The brats didn't lower their hastily drawn weapons even though Grimmjow couldn't feel anything worth being cautious about around the newcomer.

The 'annoying examiner guy', dressed in a dull grey uniform, just looked at them and smiled. "Looks like you are all awake. Good. Follow the arrows we've put up till you reach the main hall and wait there for further instructions."

He gave them a slight wave, ran in the opposite direction and disappeared down a turn in the long hallway.

Fox-brat huffed but followed the gaudy blue arrows on the walls and the floor. "Stupid examiner. Do this…do that. Just who does he think he is? I hope he..."

Grimmjow stayed well behind the brats, once again cursing his lack of spiritual energy that forced him to stick with the brats yet again even when he really didn't want to.

The air grew static-y, as they climbed down some stairs and finally reached a large spacious hall, seemingly filled with energy that seemed to be common here. Energy that Grimmjow had never felt before in Hueco Mundo.

He mused that he could probably only sense the unknown energy because it contained spiritual energy alongside something else. And now that he consciously paid attention to the energy, Grimmjow realized that every human, who seemed to have entered the hall earlier, had that energy in them.

Fox-brat shuffled, slowed down and walked beside the other two brats. "Weren't there a lot of teams before we entered the forest?"

Pink-hair nodded and stared at the humans who had lined up at the centre of the hall. "There were at least twenty teams, I think."

"More than that," Bratty-black said even as he stared straight ahead, not looking at anyone in the hall.

"And now there's only..." Fox-brat counted carefully as they stopped and lined up a little away from the other humans. When he couldn't find an exit that would lead him out, Grimmjow stood on the brats' left side, which meant that the three brats were the only humans next to him. "Only six teams? Wow."

"We were really lucky," Pink-hair said solemnly, keeping her voice low.

Bratty-black scoffed and rubbed his neck pointedly.

"Well, obviously not lucky the entire time. Just, you know, things could have been a lot worse after all that happened if..."

All three brats turned to Grimmjow, their expressions a mix of things Grimmjow didn't want to decipher. The vibes he got off them at the moment was nauseating enough.

"Why the fuck are you morons reminiscing when you're surrounded by enemies?" All three brats twitched in sync. Grimmjow stared at the large statue at the front, two hands frozen in an odd gesture that probably had some important meaning, even though he felt all sorts of stares from the humans in the hall. "How did you survive this long being so stupid?"

Before any of them could attempt to retort, a door at the front slammed open and a long line of blue-clad men with identical green vests walked out. In the long procession of humans with strong spiritual power levels, Grimmjow immediately recognized the three brats' grey-haired teacher from before.

An old man, at the very end of the line, garbed in a distinctly non-fighter attire- a pristine white robe accented by red- walked sedately till he reached the centre of the stage. The minute the old man started talking, Grimmjow tuned out the man's croaky voice and looked at the other young humans who had lined up beside the brats.

But even with his lack of attention, Grimmjow immediately noticed and paid rapt attention when the old man paused dramatically after mentioning the word 'war'.

"To prevent wasteful fighting, the countries chose the chuunin exams as the substitute stage for battle."

Grimmjow scoffed at the notion of any fighting being wasteful.

The three brats beside him, shot Grimmjow a few looks but stayed silent as the old man continued to speak.

"In these exams, you are risking your lived to protect your country's prestige." The old man paused dramatically and eyed them. "Leaders and influential individuals from many countries, will watch the third exams. These are potential clients who'll only send missions to the country they deem the strongest."

All the teams who had been lined up, shuffled and whispered to one another. Pink-hair looked around and muttered softly. "With only one team from the Sand, doesn't Fire country already have the advantage?"

"The strength of a country is the strength of the village. The strength of the village is the strength of the shinobi." The old man looked at them solemnly. "And a true shinobi's strength is only born through life-risking battle."

Grimmjow snorted. "So the old man does know what he's talking about. At least about the battle bringing out your true strength."

Fox-brat smiled at him and said, "Of course! As our leader, old-man Hokage is the strongest ninja in the village."

"Strongest?" Grimmjow examined the old man. Everything from the long white robe to the awkward hat on the man's head marked him as an easy target. But hidden underneath all that, Grimmjow detected the old man's real spiritual power level and was unpleasantly reminded of the first time he'd ever met Aizen. Power hidden away under a weak looking exterior. Power that he never would have noticed if he hadn't looked properly.

The old man said, "Losing life and establishing balance, that is the shape of friendship in our world."

Grimmjow tilted his head to the side. "And all this time I thought friendship was weak and useless human nature."

Fox-brat turned to him. "He's wrong. Friendship isn't like that."

"Your leader is wrong?" Grimmjow said watched the boy fumble for words as the old man spoke.

Fox-brat huffed. "He may be right about other things, but he's wrong about this."

Pink-hair, who stood at the front of the line, turned and shushed them with narrowed eyes.

A loud cough made them all turn to the front. "Hello everyone, I'm Hayate." Grimmjow stared at the haggard and pale man, absently noting the deep under-eye circles even as he measured the man's spiritual energy.

Fox-brat winced. "He looks..."

"Deceptively weak," Grimmjow said as he got a true feel of the man's power level. "Just like everyone else here."

The man coughed and said, "We'll be having a preliminary test to decide who gets to participate in the third exam. It seems that this year's tests were too easy since so many of you have come this far."

Pink-hair clenched her fists. "Just which part of our time in the forest was easy?"

The two brats behind her flinched.

"Since there will be many distinguished guests attending the third test, there's limited time for the fights, so we must reduce the number of participants."

Everyone stayed silent.

"If any of you aren't feeling well or feel like quitting, come forward now, since we'll be starting the preliminary round immediately."

No one moved.

"No one wants to retire from the exams? Maybe I should explain things properly?" He coughed. "From now on it will be individual battling. You can quit the exam because you aren't responsible for your team-mates' future."

Still, much to Grimmjow's surprise, none of the humans raised their hands.

Fox-brat leaned forward and said, "Sasuke, you can do this, right? Kakashi-sensei said you wouldn't have woken up till way later."

Pink-hair turned back and stared at the boy worriedly.

"I'm fine." Bratty-black snorted. "If anything, you two should worry about yourselves. All the strong fighters are here."

Pink-hair and fox-brat shared a look.

"Stupid! We're Team seven," Fox-brat said smugly.

Pink-hair smiled and nodded. "Yeah."

Bratty-black smirked at them. "Then let's meet at the finals."

Grimmjow stared at the three of them, amused by their confidence when he'd seen their abysmal fighting skills before. "You're all weak and delusional."

The three brats frowned at him.

"We'll conduct one-on-one matches to mimic a real-life confrontation. Since there are eighteen of you here, we'll have nine matches. Only the winners advance to the third test." The man paused and coughed. "The fight ends when one of you dies, gets knocked out or admits defeat. If you don't want to die, forfeit early."

With a grinding sound of metal and wood, a panel on the front wall slid up and revealed a large black screen. "This switchboard controls your destiny now. It will show the match-ups for each battle. Now, for the first fight, we have..."

Everyone looked up at the large screen.

Uchiha Sasuke VS. Akado Yoroi.

"Will these two participants come to the front. Everyone else, please move to the upper levels. Team-leaders, feel free to join your teams."

Six humans, who'd stood quietly at the front of the hall, immediately walked forward and headed in different directions. One of them, the brats' grey-haired teacher, walked towards them looking completely relaxed.

"Kakashi-sensei!" Fox-brat yelled enthusiastically at the grey-haired man.

When the brats' teacher reached them, he ruffled bratty-black's hair and said softly, "Don't worry, Sasuke. The seal I put on you won't fail."

"It better not, Kakashi. If I lose because..."

"Have faith in your own abilities and the seal will be strong." The man patted bratty-black's shoulder. "Anyway, come along you three, let's head up!"

Grimmjow didn't move. Instead he sniffed around, searching for the familiar scent he'd just smelt.

The grey-haired teacher cleared his throat. "Errr, Grimmjow? Are you planning on staying down here?"

Grimmjow ignored him, stared at bratty-black's opponent and sniffed harder.

Fox-brat walked forwards. "What's wrong?"

Grimmjow growled when the elusive scent disappeared. "Nothing! Let's go!"

"But..."

Grimmjow ignored the boy and jumped up the stairs easily. The humans who'd already gone up gave him a wide berth as he walked past them to a large empty spot at the very end of the upper levels.

Fox-brat and Pink-hair stopped by the railings in front of him. When the grey-haired teacher moved to stand close to the wall behind Grimmjow, Grimmjow growled menacingly until the man hesitantly stood beside the brats. Slightly more comfortable that his back was safe, Grimmjow settled down to watch the match below.

"Begin!"

Both fighters pulled out weapons and threw them. The weapons clashed in mid-air and deflected sideways even as they threw more weapons at each other.

Grimmjow opened his mouth to mock Bratty-black, but then the boy moved. He twisted, jumped through the air, locked his legs around the opponent's neck and pulled the taller boy down to the ground in one swoop.

Bratty-black pressed a weapon to the other boy's neck, not flinching when his opponent tried to pry his hands away.

"Is it over?" Fox-brat asked. "What's that..."

Grimmjow raised his head as Bratty-black's distinct spiritual energy pooled around and towards his opponent's hands.

"Sasuke's getting weaker!" Pink-hair said in surprise.

Fox-brat leaned against the railings. "How?"

"His opponent is draining away his chakra." The grey-haired teacher said from the side, "Since chakra is a mix of physical energy and spiritual energy, Sasuke is left with nothing to..."

Grimmjow stared at Bratty-black's opponent, eager to know how the boy had drained away foreign energy. Grimmow knew that he'd done something similar when he'd been unconscious in the forest. If he could drain and collect foreign spiritual energy consciously, then he'd never have to worry about low spiritual energy. He'd be free find and kill that Orochimaru, without depending on the annoying brats.

"Err…Grimmjow, you know you can't eat the people who get defeated here, right?" Pink-hair said hesitantly.

"What?" Grimmjow snorted but decided to play along with the girl's assumption. Deception may not be one of his strong points, but Grimmjow could make use of it if he really needed to get information. "Well, why the fuck not?"

Fox-brat turned to them. "You're hungry? I knew I should have gotten more fish from those annoying exam proctors."

Grimmjow flicked his tail at the boy's face, waiting till it hit skin before he pushed his tail spikes out, allowing them to sink deep into the boy's skin before he pulled them out viciously.

Fox-brat yelped and pressed his orange jacket sleeve against his bleeding cheek. When he pulled his hand away, only a slight smear of blood remained on undamaged skin. "Don't be angry, Grimmjow! How was I supposed to know you'd be so hungry?"

"Shut up brat!"

"If anything you should be angry at Sasuke. He said that you wouldn't need to eat any more and that I'd already gotten you too much food."

Grimmjow concentrated on Pink-hair. "Why can't I eat them?"

"Because..." Pink-hair's eyes glanced around. "You didn't fight or defeat them?"

Grimmjow huffed. "Aren't they supposed to die after losing anyway? I'd just be cleaning up."

"No!" Pink-hair looked horrified.

"So what's the whole point of all this?"

"Weren't you paying any attention at all?" Pink-hair seemed slightly annoyed.

"You're both missing the fight!" Fox-brat said, "Sasuke just used bushy-brow's move from that time."

They looked down just as Bratty-black kicked his opponent high up in to the air.

When both fighters were parallel to the ground, Pink-hair said, "He used that move perfectly after only seeing it once and never even practising it."

Grimmjow twitched in surprise at the information as the grey-haired teacher moved away to talk to one of the other men.

Fox-brat huffed. "His eyes are such a pain. I bet bushy-brows took ages to learn that move. All Sasuke had to do was copy it."

"That why the Sharingan is so famous, Naruto."

"Yeah," Fox-brat said. He moved closer to the girl and lowered his voice dramatically. "Do you think the mark is for that?"

Pink-hair looked away from the fight, seemingly confused before she said equally softly. "His eyes?"

"Maybe that mark destroys Sasuke's sharingan or something."

Bratty-black raised his leg, while still suspended in the air, and unleashed a quick barrage of kicks on the opponent as they both fell to the ground. With a victorious yell, Bratty-black twisted in mid-air and they both crashed in to the ground with a large explosion of dust.

When the dust finally cleared, Fox-brat and Pink-hair cheered loudly. Too loudly.

But Bratty-black looked up at them from his crouch and smirked. He jumped off his opponent's body easily, as the exam proctor said, "Winner, Uchiha Sasuke."

Bratty-black came up the stairs, reached their spot and shot his team-mates a smug look.

Fox-brat huffed. "Just because you managed to defeat that guy, it doesn't mean you strong enough to go after _him_."

Pink-hair nodded while their teacher looked at them in slight confusion.

Bratty-black narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth to retort, but a voice from below said, "Next participants, please make your way down."

The brats looked up at the screen.

"Kiba and Shino?" Fox-brat said, "But they're team-mates! How can they make them fight your team-mates, Kakashi-sensei?"

"The match pairings are completely random..."

"And why is he taking Akamaru with him?" Fox-brat interrupted quickly. "Akamaru is only a puppy, he'll get hurt."

The brat's teacher sighed and said, "He's a ninja tool, so it's perfectly all right to use him in a fight."

"I see. Then..." Fox-brat turned away from the fight and said, "Grimmjow, when it's my turn, let's fight together!"

Grimmjow yawned widely and closed his eyes.

There was a snort, a sigh and a stifled snicker but Fox-brat just said, "Ah! I understand. You believe that I can fight and win on my own without any help, right?"

Grimmjow wanted to tell the brat not to put stupid words in his mouth. But after dealing with Di Roy and all his other Fraccion before, Grimmjow knew it would just be a waste of time so he kept his eyes shut.

"Woah! Are those bugs?"

Grimmjow didn't know what happened, but the next thing he was conscious of was Fox-brat yelling. "All right! Sakura-chan you're awesome."

Grimmjow opened his eyes and looked around in disoriented confusion. He stood up and moved closer to the railings.

Down below, Pink-hair faced off against another girl, who looked tired and moved sluggishly.

"Sakura always did have the best chakra control out of all of you." The brats' teacher leaned heavily against the railing. "It's no wonder that her movements are so quick and precise."

"They're evenly matched in skills," Bratty-black said all of a sudden.

"That they are Sasuke." The teacher agreed. "This match will probably come down to a test of endurance."

And it did.

Grimmjow had never felt so utterly bored watching a fight. Of course, he rarely ever just watched fights when he could participate in them himself.

Though both girls exchanged heavy hits, they always countered each other perfectly.

With the heavy silence in the hall, Grimmjow wondered if everyone else had fallen asleep. As the girls countered and separated yet again to stand opposite one another, Grimmjow groaned loudly.

For a split-second, Pink-hair looked up at the sound that seemed too loud in the silence.

"There's no way that you could be even with me," the blonde opponent said between laboured gasps of breath.

Pink-hair, looking better off than her opponent, narrowed her eyes and looked up once again. She took a deep breath and said, "You're right."

The blonde girl seemed startled by the words and she lost her fighting stance.

Pink-hair released a burst of energy and moved. Nothing as fast as a sonido, for sure, but fast for a weak human. Before the blonde girl could react, Pink-hair stood behind her and said, "Right now, I'm actually stronger than you."

And then she hit the blonde-haired girl.

"Winner. Haruno Sakura."

Grimmjow snorted as Fox-brat cheered loudly and Bratty-black smirked yet again.

The brats seemed predictable. Like Di Roy. Or even Shawlong. Heck, just like all his old fraccion.

To his aggravation, Grimmjow stirred in to consciousness yet again from another unexplainable bout of sleep, when he heard a voice yell his name in disbelief.

"I can't believe he went back to sleep when it's my turn to fight. He watched both of your fights."

"Stop whining Naruto!" A female voice yelled. "And get moving. Kabuto-san is already down there."

Though he knew there was something terribly wrong with him falling asleep randomly, Grimmjow didn't feel like waking or moving from his spot as loud yells, clashing metal and other sounds of battle filled the air for a few minutes.

He took a deep breath.

And opened his eyes wide when he caught a definite flicker of familiar scent. The one that he'd thought he'd only imagined earlier. He stood, pushed past the brats in front of him, eyed the fight below him and snarled when Fox-brat knocked his taller opponent back easily.

The opponent, a white-haired boy with glasses who suddenly lost all traces of any scent, moved too smoothly even though it looked like he was being pushed back.

Grimmjow moved closer to the railings and pushed his head through the bars, watching the new boy's movements.

An overly clumsy dodge there.

A genuine duck there.

And his lack of movement against an incoming kick.

Grimmjow tensed as the scent appeared yet again and then disappeared equally fast as the white-haired boy fell back with a yelp and a group of fox-brats ganged up on him.

"I forfeit," A muffled voice said.

Fox-brat dismissed his extras with a smile.

"Winner of the seventh match, Uzumaki Naruto."

The white-haired boy stood and walked forward with an outstretched hand. But Grimmjow jumped and with a flash of speed, a very weak Sonido, landed in front of Fox-brat.

"Wha… Grimmjow?" Fox-brat said.

Two soft thumps landed behind him close to the fox-brat.

"Sakura-chan, Sasuke, what's wrong with Grimmjow?"

"Does it look like we know?" Bratty-black sounded annoyed.

"Where is he, boy?" Grimmjow growled. "Where is that _man_?"

Behind him, all three brats' breathing hitched, seemingly understanding who Grimmjow was referring to.

The white-haired boy's eyes widened, his spiritual energy spiked slightly and the scent appeared all in a split-second. That was more than enough confirmation for Grimmjow.

He lunged forward.

Only to be stopped by three bodies jumping on him simultaneously.

"You can't eat Kabuto-san, silly Grimmjow," Fox-brat said in an obnoxiously loud voice.

At the same time, Bratty-black whispered very softly. "Not here."

The exam proctor stopped in front of them and coughed loudly. "Is there a problem?"

Fox-brat laughed. "Grimmjow is just really hungry as usual."

Grimmjow growled loudly and eyed the white-haired boy as he attempted to free himself from the three brats.

"That's no reason to interrupt the exam. You're delaying the next match."

Pink-hair sighed. "We apologize. It won't happen again. Kabuto-san, I'm also sorry about this."

"It's not a problem at all. After all, I was hurting Naruto-kun." The boy winced, too dramatically and so obviously fake in Grimmjow's opinion, and said, "I think I better go with those medics now."

The three brats only let go of Grimmjow when the white-haired boy left the hall.

"You annoying brats!" He growled, annoyed that he felt slightly relieved at being stopped. With his current lack of spiritual energy, fighting would have been useless. Even so, he snarled. "God damn Aizen!"

"Let's go back up, okay?"

"No!" Grimmjow growled at fox-brat. "I'm going for a fucking walk."

"But..." Fox-brat looked at the other two with a pleading expression.

"Fine," Bratty-black said. "Go. Quickly!"

"Sasuke!"

"You idiot!"

Grimmjow snorted and ran towards the door the white-haired boy go through. Grimmjow cursed himself for not getting a proper read on the boy's spiritual energy and hoped that the boy hadn't hidden all trace of his scent again.


	4. Unplanned Heroics

He'd been too late.

The minute Grimmjow had entered the wing, he'd known that. He'd still searched for the elusive scent underneath the strong pungent smell of herbs and blood but no matter how hard he searched, it felt like the boy had never even entered the area.

Unwilling to let his prey's trail go cold, Grimmjow had searched for the medics who'd escorted the boy out of the fighting hall but the all looked boringly alike and he couldn't quite remember anything other than the white-haired boy. And even if it was the most useful thing he could do at the moment, Grimmjow wouldn't actually stoop to ask the weak cowering medics about the boy.

He kept searching and sniffing every inch of space until the three brats entered the medical wing, took one look at him and slumped down in disappointment when they realized that the white-haired boy wasn't there.

Thankfully they didn't say a word.

Not even when they teacher looked at all them as though he wanted an explanation. "You three shouldn't be so glum! Not when it's time to celebrate!"

"We're celebrating something?" Fox-brat asked.

"Of course we are!" The teacher said, "You're the only complete team from Konoha who made it all the way to the finals!

"You don't sound very enthusiastic about it Kakashi-sensei," Pink-hair said with a slight smile.

"Ah! Is that so?"

The three brats shared exasperated looks.

"How about I treat you three to some nice food? Would that be… enthusiastic enough?"

"Only if Grimmjow gets to come with us," Fox-brat said immediately.

The teacher's only visible eye crinkled as though he were smiling. "Of course, he's coming to celebrate with us. What kind of sensei do you take me for?"

Pink-hair snorted. "Do you really need to ask?"

"You three have grown up and become so uncute." The grey-haired man turned nonchalantly and led them to one of the halls. Grimmjow only moved from his spot and followed after the three brats when he remembered that Bratty-black was his only real lead to Orochimaru now.

He didn't like it but he knew better than to lose his only chance at killing that insolent man.

Soon they were out of the forest and in an open grassland while Fox-brat kept on a steady stream of talking that made Grimmjow's ears throb. Who he was talking to, Grimmjow had no idea, but none of the other humans seemed to mind the noise. If that wasn't enough, his sense of smell felt overwhelmed with a multitude of unrecognizable scents all around him.

He knew there was nothing he could do. The last time he'd been in this form, he'd been in Hueco Mundo and Hollows were the only things that gave off scents there.

The finally stopped in a large clearing with an odd stone structure at the very centre. When they settled close to the stone, a copy of the brats' teacher walked towards them with a multitude of bags and boxes.

Grimmjow was sufficiently distracted when an open box, filled with fish, was placed in front of him.

"I know this may be a bit too early to discuss, but I wanted you to know that I've already thought about all three of your preparations during the month before the final exam!"

The three brats looked at the man in surprise.

Pink-hair swallowed her food hastily and said, "You did?"

The teacher nodded. "Naruto, you'll need to improve your basics. And Sakura, your endurance needs to grow. So I've contacted two people who are well-suited to dealing with your individual weaknesses."

The man looked at the two brats expectantly.

"Are you going to be training Sasuke?" Fox-brat asked.

"Yes, but there's no need to be..."

"Good!" Fox-brat said, "He needs a lot of help."

Pink-hair nodded as Grimmjow swallowed a pink coloured fish.

"What?" Their teacher seemed utterly surprised.

"You've got the Sharingan, so you need to make sure he can use his eyes properly," Pink-hair shrugged absently. Then she narrowed her eyes. "You are going to do that, right?"

The teacher blinked. "Of course!"

Bratty-black narrowed his eyes. "Don't talk about me like I'm the weakest one here."

"But Sasuke, Grimmjow says you're really weak," Fox-brat said, his voice so uncharacteristically serious, that Grimmjow actually sniffed to check if it really was Fox-brat.

Bratty-black turned to him.

Wondering when exactly he'd said that, Grimmjow just yawned and picked up another fish.

Fox-brat said, "See. You totally need Kakashi-sensei's help. And all of his attention."

Their teacher looked between all of them awkwardly. "That's not... err, anyway, here comes your first teacher. Thank you for coming here, Ebisu-san."

Fox-brat stared for a moment before he stood, pointed dramatically and yelled. "Closet pervert?"

Everyone stared at the newcomer.

The man laughed. "Naruto-kun, you and your jokes!"

"What jokes? You're the one who got defeated by my hare..." A hand clamped down on Fox-brat's mouth and the newly arrived man whispered frantically in the brat's ear.

Fox-brat rolled his eyes and nodded.

The man removed his hand and pushed his sunglasses up with a twitch. "I'll do my best to make him excel in the basics, Kakashi-san."

"I have no doubt you will. Also, I hope you don't mind a slight change of plans." The grey-haired man turned to Pink-hair and said, "Sakura, my other clone just found out your teacher's busy this week. But you can train alongside Naruto with Ebisu and hone your basics till your teacher comes."

Pink-hair stared at Fox-brat for a moment before she shook her head. "No! Naruto will train better if Ebisu-san concentrates on him. I can practise the basics just fine on my own."

"Sakura..."

"Kakashi-sensei, I can handle basic training on my own for a week."

The grey-haired teacher stared at her for a moment but sighed. "Don't overdo it."

Pink-hair scoffed as she looked at her team-mates. "I'm not like these two."

Finding his box completely empty, Grimmjow stood, turned and moved away from the humans. He'd been walking for a few minutes when he finally growled in annoyance. "Why the fuck are you following me?"

Pink-hair stared at him. "What else am I supposed to do?"

"Stop following me."

"But," the brat huffed, "do you even know where you're going?"

"I'm going to search for that snake-bastard."

Pink-hair frowned at him. "How? I think even our elite Anbu had trouble trying to find him."

Grimmjow scoffed. "I'm not some useless human. I'll find him just fine on my own."

"But shouldn't you wait for a while? For a month, at least?

"A month?" Grimmjow growled. "What the fuck am I going to do for a whole month?"

Pink-hair stared at him and said, "Well, er, you could also train up for your fight against Orochimaru. I mean, you're not completely healed, right?"

Grimmjow stared at her.

Pink-hair fumbled nervously. "I mean… if you were completely strong, you'd have attacked Sensei. I don't know if he's as strong as Orochimaru, but I know he's stronger than the three of us."

"I attacked you little shits when I was injured," He reminded her even though he was slightly miffed she'd put together all that. Grimmjow turned away with an annoyed huff, suddenly even more eager to leave the brat's presence. "Don't worry, I'll kill your teacher after I deal with Orochimaru."

But Pink-hair's words were true. He needed to practice. It had been a while since he'd been in this form and he needed to work out the kinks of how to fight on four legs again. He needed to remember how to use his body as the weapon in his fight, especially when there was something wrong with his spiritual energy. "I am the strongest! That's all I need to know," Grimmjow said to himself.

Forgetting that he wasn't completely alone yet, he twitched when Pink-hair said, "How do you know that you are the strongest? Or well, just if you are strong and..."

"If I wasn't strong, I'd be dead already." He grimaced at his unconsciously given reply, knowing that he'd unwittingly encouraged the brat to keep talking.

"That..." Pink-hair looked up to the blue sky. "That actually makes sense."

Grimmjow snorted. "Obviously, stupid."

"How did you get strong Grimmjow?"

Grimmjow watched her from the corner of his eye. Ignoring her would make her shut up. But then she'd think he wasn't actually strong. "I fought. I kept fighting and winning."

"I see." Pink-hair clenched her fists tightly. Then she sighed and slumped down. "Where exactly am I going to fight here?"

Grimmjow ignored the girl's musings and walked away, already knowing where he'd be starting his search.

"Wait!"

"You.. just who do you think you're trying to boss around?" Grimmjow said in irritation and raised his tail spikes.

"That…I'm not bossing you around. I just want to come with you."

"Fuck no!" Grimmjow said and jumped away from her.

There was a thump of running footsteps. Grimmjow looked a little to the side and noticed a flash of red just behind him.

He sped up.

The flash of red disappeared but the thumps and thuds behind him didn't stop.

Grimmjow reached the Forest, the one that he'd fought Orochimaru in. He scoffed at the locked gates around the forested area. With a slight tug on his spiritual energy, he jumped up high, cleared the tall fence and landed smoothly on a tree branch. He jumped down on to the forest floor easily, sneezed in annoyance at the dust cloud that surrounded him but ran ahead, smug when no sounds followed after him.

He'd just come across a lair of large sleeping tigers in the distance, when a solid thump above him brought an all too familiar scent.

"So you managed to keep up?" Grimmjow looked up at the girl, noting her laboured breathing and the strain in her limbs. "But it looks like you're going to faint, weakling."

"Shut up," she mumbled and jumped down. "I'm not that weak. This is nothing."

"And you're finally showing some backbone, huh? You're full of surprises, brat. But your…team-mates," Grimmjow snorted at the word and continued. "Aren't here right now. Stop pretending to be strong."

Pink-hair huffed and brushed her clothes as she moved beside Grimmjow and looked around curiously.

Grimmjow growled loudly, issuing an animalistic challenge, easily waking the large tigers who rose, came out of their lair and ran at him with vicious snarls. "Come on fuckers, I'll show you just how strong I am."

A whoosh of metal sliced through the air.

Grimmjow looked a little to the side and saw a sharp metal knife slam in to a large insect's body.

"I'm not weak!" Pink-hair huffed as more insects came out from the undergrowth and surrounded them alongside the large tigers.

Grimmjow laughed as he lunged forward and tore through the throat muscles of an impudent tiger that had come too close to him. He left the creature for dead and moved on to the next tiger, which seemed bigger than the one he'd downed.

A massive paw clawed at his side, but the tiger's claw slid down harmlessly against his plated skin armour. Grimmjow used the tiger's momentary distraction to pounce up at the tiger's throat as well.

"Shannaro!"

Grimmjow snorted at the nonsensical yell but ripped out the tiger's blood coated windpipe. He crushed whatever he had in his mouth, spit it out callously and jumped at a large centipede that had been trying to attack his legs.

He twitched when a metal weapon whizzed past him and a large something fell down beside him. Grimmjow looked from the corner of his eye at the tiger carcass that had a weapon sticking out of it's eye. In his haste to deal with the centipedes, he'd forgotten about the remaining tiger.

Angry at his inattention, Grimmjow viciously bit the next centipede and continued fighting for a long time until there was nothing left alive in the clearing.

Pink-hair huffed and pulled out her knives from a chunk of smashed flesh. She flicked the blood and flesh off her weapons and stuffed them into her pouch, wincing as the scabbed gashes on her arms and legs cracked and bled. "I told you…I wasn't weak."

And then she fell face forward on to a dead centipede.

Grimmjow stared at the unconscious body of the girl and turned away eager to get on with his search for Orochimaru.

He took a few steps forward, stared at the tiger carcass that Pink-hair had downed and groaned. "Fucking pain in the ass brat. Just how many debts do I have to owe you."

Grimmjow reluctantly grabbed the back of her red shirt in his jaws and lifted her off the forest floor easily. Grimmjow ran in the direction they had come in from, jumped up on to the trees and deftly jumped over the large metal fence on to the other side.

He sniffed around and ran in the direction he could smell humans close by. Within minutes, he was on a dusty street and immediately one of the men there turned to him and gaped stupidly.

"Woah! What the heck happened to her?"

Grimmjow stared at the unknown man, utterly convinced that all weak humans were annoyingly stupid.

"She's probably a little heavy for you to carry, right? Here, why don't I hold her for you and..."

Grimmjow narrowed his eyes at the man and growled, outraged at the man's implication of being too weak to even hold on to the tiny brat.

The man backed up nervously and raised his hands placatingly. "Okay then, I won't touch her. Let's just get her to the hospital, okay? Just follow me."

Grimmjow snorted and easily kept pace with the man until the reached a large building that seemed close to a large imposing mountain. As soon as they entered the building, one of the people dressed in white rushed to him and took a hold of Pink-hair carefully.

He followed after them curiously, wondering what kind of healing techniques the humans used here.

"Another one that's overexerted herself!" The medic lady who examined Pink-hair tutted. "What's with all these kids today? Training to the point of exhaustion can't possible help them at all."

Grimmjow snorted but kept silent when the woman's hands suddenly glowed green. Grimmjow noted the tiny amount of spiritual energy overwhelmed by something else, most probably physical energy if that grey-haired man's explanation was true, within the green glow as she tapped on one of the brat's open gashes. The wounds closed completely, leaving no scars or traces of the wound's existence.

As the medic moved on to another open wound, Pink-hair opened her eyes groggily. She watched the green-glowing hands close the wound with a slightly hypnotized expression on her face.

"That's really…cool."

The medic yelped. "Oh my! You woke up."

Pink-hair blinked stupidly at the lady. "I was sleeping?"

The medic laughed indulgently. "You were unconscious, young lady. I wasn't expecting you to wake up for a long while." Her hands glowed green once more and she held it over another cut.

"Can I learn that?" Pink-hair whispered.

The medic looked surprised. "You want to learn this?"

Pink-hair tilted her head and nodded. "It'll be useful when I train."

"This isn't something you can just learn. You need to have perfect chakra control and years of practice."

Pink-hair frowned as her final wound closed up. "I see."

"But if you're really interested, I can talk with one of the doctors about you shadowing them as they work. That way you'll get a glimpse of how this works."

"Yes, please do that." Pink-hair hopped off the bed clumsily and steadied herself as she bowed.

"No need be so formal. I'm just glad that someone is showing interest in this job even though it isn't so glamorous." The medic said, "Now you need to get some rest and..."

-x-x-x-x-x-

Three weeks passed by in the haze of a tentative routine. Grimmjow searched around the village, happily scaring any humans he came across, for any trace of Orochimaru. Every time he failed to find something he headed towards, what Pink-hair called, the Forest of Death in a murderous rage.

Pink-hair always found him in the forest by evening and joined him in the eradication of some large forest creature after her daily training.

Grimmjow learnt a lot of things during those three weeks. First of all, his spiritual energy replenished itself way too slowly in this human world and it only did so when he slept. Of course, that never stopped him from using his spiritual energy when fighting in the forest. He'd destroyed a good amount of trees trying to re-train his cero casting abilities.

Second of all, Pink-hair was annoyingly persistent for a human. She never failed to follow or find him. And with each passing day, he noticed that she stopped gasping for breath after running continuously. It made him think of Kurosaki's quick growth, and for a few crazed moments, Grimmjow almost wished he was human so that he could grow stronger quickly. Then he'd see the weak villagers who stared at him stupidly, notice their lack of strength and he'd firmly push those thoughts away.

As Grimmjow looked around at the carnage he'd created that day, he was distracted by a slight buzz of spiritual energy coming from Pink-hair. He turned and stared at the girl's green glowing hand as it hovered over her arm.

The large gash underneath her fingers closed up sluggishly but surely.

"You learnt that healing thing."

Pink-haired grinned at him, her teeth mildly disturbing in the green glow. "All by myself. The people at the hospital don't know that I've been trying this. No one knows I can use this."

Grimmjow moved closer and stared at the green glow, measuring the amount of spiritual energy in it. "Looks pretty useful."

"It's my trump card for the finals."

"Doesn't seem like much for that."

Pink-hair snorted. "Not yet obviously. I can make it better in a week."

Grimmjow just stood up and walked forward in search of another fight.

When it was finally too dark, he turned around and they both made their way out of the forest easily bypassing the tall locked gates. After a few minutes, they were in the centre of the village surrounded by weak humans, civilians as Pink-hair called them, who gave Grimmjow a wide berth. He growled menacingly at the curious ones who stared and revelled in the increased fear of the people around him.

Pink-hair just sighed as she walked beside him until they reached a modest house. She pulled out a key from her pouch and opened the door, keeping it wide open for Grimmjow.

"Sakura, there's another package on the counter there for you," a female voice, from one of the more annoying civilians Grimmjow had to deal with daily, came from the back of the house as Pink-hair closed the door.

Pink-hair grabbed a large box and yelled back. "Thanks mom, I got it." She climbed up the stairs and Grimmjow followed her absently, trying his best to stifle a yawn.

The minute they entered Pink-hair's small room, Grimmjow jumped on to the soft bed and shuffled down in to the sheets.

Pink-hair opened the box and pulled out a fat fish. "Here you go, Grimmjow. Looks like Naruto got you another ocean fish."

Grimmjow just huffed. "Keep the window open, stupid."

"Yes, yes, I know." Pink-hair rolled her eyes and threw the fish at him. "But I still think it's ridiculous that you'll be able to smell Orochimaru if his scent shows up anywhere in the village."

"Just because you're weak and talentless, doesn't mean I am too." Grimmjow grabbed the fish absently and watched Pink-hair unroll her futon on the ground. "I told you, my senses are only attuned to catching my prey's scent now, so it ignores everything else automatically." Grimmjow didn't feel inclined to mention that he'd only just developed the skill recently and he didn't know if it actually worked like that. In Heco Mundo, he'd never dealt with prey who played such annoyingly elaborate hide and seek games, and he'd never had to track something with scent alone.

"Fine," she huffed.

He munched on the fish sleepily, watching Pink-hair open a text-filled scroll.

Just as he was about to give in to sleep, a faint tickle of a scent that forced him wide awake.

Grimmjow sat up and analysed the scent. It was faint, but it was a snake-like scent. Not enough to be Orochimaru, but definitely enough to be that white-haired escape artist.

Pink-hair startled at his movement, dropping her scroll in surprise. "Grimmjow?"

He jumped out of her room's window, landed gently on the quiet street below and ran, irritated that he couldn't use a sonido since he'd used up all his spirit energy while fighting in the forest earlier.

A muffled curse and a soft thump beside him alerted him to the fact that Pink-hair had joined him even as the scent he'd been focused on disappeared abruptly. Even so, Grimmjow ran forward confidently to the place he knew his prey had been at and stopped in front of a dull ornate building.

Pink-hair stopped beside him with a slight huff. "This is… Kikyo castle?"

Grimmjow concentrated and used his pesquisa. A wave of his spiritual energy fanned out from him and he closed his eyes as the technique relayed a vague image of the closest spiritual signatures. To his aggravation, there was only one weakening spiritual energy at the top. "Someone's dying up there."

"What?" Pink-hair jumped up before he could say anything else and disappeared up on to one of the roofs.

Grimmjow jumped up after her, hoping he'd find a clue about the white-haired boy. Pink-hair sat hunched over a gasping man, her green glowing hands hovering close over a blood-soaked chest. Grimmjow walked past her, turned his senses completely on and sniffed at everything carefully.

The wall only held traces of sand.

The floor smelt like the dying man.

But he couldn't find a single tinge of snake anywhere.

"Grimmjow... are you staying here?"

Grimmjow huffed. "There's nothing useful here now. That little fucker removed all traces of his presence again. No smell, nothing."

Pink-hair just nodded and placed her hands underneath the man. With a deep breath and a slight flinch, she lifted the man who groaned painfully. "Then let's go."

Grimmjow stared at her for a full minute, noting her slightly trembling arms and her paleness, before he jumped.

He waited idly and shifted his senses back to it's normal mode, taking in every bit of information around him. Pink-hair joined him a minute later with a pained huff. "Stupid heavy examiner. He needs to go on a diet when he wakes up."

Grimmjow analyzed all the scents he could catch now that he wasn't in his hunting mode, and ran down deserted roads. He concentrated and used his pesquisa to track down humans with strong spiritual energy and adjusted his course accordingly.

As soon as Grimmjow reached one of the busier districts well ahead of Pink-hair, he growled loudly catching the attention of a group of humans wearing dark blue clothes and sporting dull green vests.

A bearded man, with a cigarette in his mouth, turned to him curiously but gasped with wide eyes as Pink-hair finally reached them. "You! You're one of Kakashi's students and that's…Hayate? "

"This..." Pink-hair gasped tiredly as one of the other men came forward, grabbed the unconscious body and ran hastily in another direction. "I tried..."

Grimmjow flinched when the girl slumped forward and fell across his back unconscious. "Stupid brat! You're getting that man's blood all over me."

The weight across his back disappeared immediately as someone lifted Pink-hair carefully. "I better get her to the hospital. One of you inform Kakashi. And someone better go find where the scene of the attack."

"Can you take us to the place of the attack?" One of the remaining men said, dragging each word out slowly as he stared at Grimmjow.

Grimmjow eyed the disappearing form of Pink-hair and scoffed. "I'm not a fucking dog, you retarded bastards. Go to Kikyo Castle yourselves." He turned and ran.

When he reached the hospital, no one stopped him from entering Pink-hair's room and claiming a spot on the only empty bed there. He watched idly as various medical personal came to check on Pink-hair until her breathing eased up and became normal.

Grimmjow had just closed his eyes in the darkened room, eager to back to sleep when the door slid open. He growled in response and opened an eye.

Silhouetted in the annoying bright light coming from the hall was the grey-haired teacher. Grimmjow raised his head and stared at the man, wondering if now would be considered the perfect time to kill the man and eat his powerful soul.

The teacher entered the room and thankfully closed the door getting rid of the light. He moved to Pink-hair, stared at her for a few minutes and then turned to him. "She'll be fine, you know."

Grimmjow just closed his eyes, wondering why the man thought he'd need to know something so obvious. He was just staying here, because it would take too long to go back to the brat's house. And Pink-hair's parents were annoying to deal with, they'd just whimper and delay him from sleeping.

No, it was in his best interest to stay here so he could sleep without unnecessary delays.

-x-x-x-x-x-

The day of the final tournament was considerably bright. So bright that Grimmjow growled in irritation when sunlight fell on his eyes and shuffled deeper under the covers.

Only for the covers to be pulled away viciously. "Grimmjow, wake up. You'll miss the tournament! And then Naruto will be annoying about it because he sent you all that fish."

Grimmjow opened one eye and stared at Pink-hair. She was completely dressed, and had multiple pouches on various parts of her body.

He promptly closed his eyes again.


	5. Gaining Popularity

"You're not fighting with any of us in there, so just stay here in the stadium stands with Ino, okay?" Pink-hair pointed to a nervous blonde-haired girl and smiled uneasily at the humans around him.

When Grimmjow stayed silent, she just sighed, shot the girl another smile and disappeared with a small wave.

Had she honestly expected to actually stay here surrounded by a bunch of disgusting humans? Unwilling to be far from the fights, Grimmjow waited for a few minutes before he stood, ignoring the blonde girl's squeak, and walked up the stairs to the top of the stands.

Grimmjow had waited patiently for this day, hoping that Bratty-black's participation in the tournament would lure Orochimaru out of his hiding place. That hope had been the only thing that made him put up with everything during the past month.

Grimmjow entered a secluded doorway, one that wasn't filled with annoying humans, and walked until he found some stairs that led down inside the stadium structure.

Even though he passed similar looking hallways, numerous doors and many flights of stairs, he confidently moved ahead. After dealing with Gin's constant rearranging of Heuco Mundo's hallways, Grimmjow felt he could handle a normal building.

When Grimmjow finally reached the ground level of the stadium, he slowed down as a group of brats walked in his direction.

"Grimmjow! What are you doing down there?" Pink-hair yelled, her voice seeming twice as annoying in the closed off hall. "I can't believe Ino just let you go off on your own."

"Are you saying I need a damn babysitter?"

Pink-hair flinched. "No?"

"That better be a real no, or I'll make an exception and kill you before Orochimaru."

"First match, begin!" A loud voice yelled.

Pink-hair gasped and looked around the empty hallway. "Crap! The others already went up to watch Naruto's match."

Grimmjow watched her climb up a few stairs and turned to the small flight of stairs the brats had come in from. A direct path the the actual battle arena.

Would Orochimaru show up in the arena for Bratty-black?

In front of all those people?

Probably not.

But he'd be watching from somewhere close.

With the amount of people in the stadium, using the pesquisa would drain too much spiritual energy. He'd have to sort through all the energy signatures, something too tedious and time consuming. And that man had probably hidden his energy, the chakra that they used here meaning his spiritual energy would be similarly hidden, to normal levels.

Even scent tracking was out. Not after that white-haired boy had proven that he could hide his scent away for long periods of time.

"Grimmjow, you're missing the fight!" Pink-hair yelled from the top of the stairs to the above level.

He ran up the stairs, not because she'd told him to, but because he knew he needed to wait for Orochimaru to make the first move. Amidst the competitors gathered together, a red-head with a gourd on his back stood out to Grimmjow even as he watched the fight below.

"Why aren't they fighting?" Grimmjow growled in annoyance, a few minutes in to the match. "Who talks in the middle of a fight like that?"

Pink-hair shrugged uncomfortably as she listened to the talk from below.

As For-brat's opponent blathered on about his forehead seal, Grimmjow groaned. "For fuck's sake, this is retarded."

"Grimmjow!" Sakura hissed at him, looking around self-consciously when all the other match contestants turned to him.

"What, you're actually interested in his sob story? It's probably just a distraction."

"That..."

Grimmjow glared at her. "What if _that man_ had a sob story? Would you listen sympathetically, brat?"

Pink-hair's nostrils flared. " _That man_ would never have a sob story."

"I thought all humans had a shitty sob story."

Fox-brat said something too low for them to hear, but his opponent just rushed forward and hit him in the chest.

Grimmjow snickered. "I told you."

Fox-brat pushed himself up, trembling but so utterly defiant, that for a moment Grimmjow saw Kurosaki down there. Grimmjow growled to himself as he recalled his last battle at Heuco Mundo."No wonder he annoys me so much. Bloody Kurosaki-clone pulling out shitty victories and..."

"Victory?" Pink-hair said incredulously. "But he's on the verge of losing."

"Just how stupid are you?" Grimmjow stared at her. "Isn't it obvious, Fox-brat's going to pull out something ridiculous and win."

"I don't believe that."

Grimmjow shrugged. "That's why you're weak."

Even as he said it, Fox-brat took on an odd stance and suddenly foul energy blazed around the boy. Grimmjow could vaguely see an animalistic image in the spirit energy before it wrapped around the boy.

"What is Naruto doing?" One of the boys, with a tall spiky ponytail at the top of his head, asked Pink-hair.

Pink-hair glanced in Grimmjow's direction and shrugged. "Using his trump card."

As the newly energized fox-brat trade blows with his opponent, Grimmjow assessed the spiritual energy below him. The more he felt, the more he realized that the spiritual energy was definitely not human.

It was too corrosive.

Almost like that something that he'd imagined belonging to the twisted creatures stuck in Jigoku, the hell realm.

"Oh no, Naruto!" Pink-hair leaned down close to the railings when both opponents clashed together, their energies exploding and shoving them both backwards, "Don't tell me that Hyuuga bastard won."

This time the competitors stared at Pink-hair.

Unfortunately for her, the first person to stand was the 'Hyuuga bastard'. He walked forward, radiating smugness as he eyed Fox-brat's unconscious body. The minute he turned to the referee, Fox-brat jumped up out of the ground, right beneath the long-haired opponent and smacked his smug opponent's chin. Grimmjow blinked, surprised at the boy's planning ability but even more irritated at the reminder of Kurosaki's victory.

The crowd above them cheered deafeningly.

When Fox-brat came up the stairs, Pink-hair hugged him and let the others congratulate him.

After all the fuss, Fox-brat turned to him. "Grimmjow. Grimmjow, did you see?"

Cursing the boy's excessive energy, Grimmjow turned away and waited for his ears to stop ringing.

Unfortunately Pink-hair chose that moment to say, "He said you were going to win early on in the match."

"What?" Fox-brat said, his blue eyes unnervingly wide and shiny. "Really?"

Up above them, the crowd's cheering had shifted in to impatience.

"It was common sense!" Grimmjow huffed. "And where is the other brat?"

The boy with the pony-tail looked at them and asked. "Is Sasuke not planning to come?"

Fox-brat blinked and then looked down at the battle arena. "No way! He'll definitely be here."

Grimmjow felt like pacing. If Bratty-black didn't show up, then Orochimaru wouldn't turn up either.

A man landed close to the examiner and they spoke to each other for few minutes. The examiner looked up at the crowd and said, "Ladies and gentlemen! The contestant for the next match hasn't arrived yet. So we'll push this match back and begin the next one."

Grimmjow growled in approval. He'd been getting bored.

The boy with the ponytail, who'd talked to the brats before, panicked. "That means my match just got closer."

"Now the next match. Kankuro from Sand and Aburame Shino. Come down!"

Grimmjow turned curiously, wondering who the fighters were. The black clad boy who'd been standing next to the dangerous red-head looked down and yelled. "I forfeit."

Pink-hair frowned.

The girl next to him, pulled the weapon from her back, opened it to reveal a large fan and swung it around. With practised ease she jumped on to the fan and floated down to the arena.

The examiner stared at her for a few minutes but nodded and looked up. "Shikamaru, get down here."

Fox-brat grinned at the pony-tailed boy and slapped his back. "All right. Go for it Shikamaru."

Grimmjow watched in disbelief as the boy fell down clumsily. "How did he make it all the way here?"

Pink-hair turned to him. "His opponent was his team-mate in the preliminaries, but he forfeited so..."

"It was an easy pass for him," Fox-brat said. "That sand-lady is pretty strong, though. I wonder if he'll be fine."

"He has the advantage. She's never seen him fight, so she won't know what to expect." Pink-hair said confidently.

"Then we should totally cheer him on!" Fox-brat said. He leaned against the railings and yelled. "You can do it, Shikamaru! Kick her ass."

Grimmjow's ears throbbed and a strong gust of wind from the arena below blew close to his face.

Fox-brat yelped. "Her techniques are so powerful."

When the matched stretched for more than a few minutes, Grimmjow turned away from the fight, if it could be called that with all the hiding the boy did, and stared at the red-haired boy who'd captured his attention earlier.

"His shadow is moving."

After a few minutes of relaxing silence. "I can't believe he's taking a break there!"

"Shut up Naruto, he could be planning something."

"But the match started ages ago," Fox-brat whined.

Just as Grimmjow realized that the gourd on the red-head's back had tons of spiritual energy inside, muted by the gourd's exterior, the brats gasped.

"He's got her!"

"He's really smart." Pink-hair seemed excited. "He planned for that all the way from the start."

A male voice from the arena interrupted their conversation. "I forfeit."

Surprised and disappointed mutterings erupted from the crowd above. Fox-brat's disappointment though, was the loudest. He complained loudly and jumped down to the arena.

"So that sand kunoichi won because Shikamru forfeited. Looks like I'll have to fight her next."

Grimmjow turned to Pink-hair, "You didn't have a proper opponent before? Did they know you were weak?"

Pink-hair twitched. "I just drew the number seven by choice by chance. I'm sure they'd already planned the fights out before hand with the numbers only."

"Who'd believe that?" Grimmjow said.

"Whatever jus..." She stopped and turned to the arena below as swirling gusts of wind and leaves concentrated at the centre of the arena. When everything settled down, Grimmjow saw the bratty-black standing back-to-back with his grey-haired teacher.

"Are they trying to look cool or something when it's time for my match?" Pink-hair said even as she smiled.

Grimmjow eyed the boy's new black outfit and laughed.

Pink-hair turned to him. "Are you all right? They're arrival isn't that funny."

"The brat's wearing black," Grimmjow said.

"Is that some sort of cat reasoning?"

Grimmjow stared at her. "You really are stupid."

Pink-hair turned away with a huff. "At least say something new."

The grey-haired teacher spoke to the referee, who looked up at the highest stand for a minute and then nodded.

"With the approval of the Kages present, we'll conduct the next between Uchiha Sasuke and Gaara of the Sand."

"What? He can't just do that! What am I..." Her voice was drowned out by the increased chattering and yells from above.

Grimmjow tilted his head to the side. "Looks like the crowd is excited about this match-up."

Pink-hair huffed. "Of course they would. It's not like females kunoichis can have an awesome fight or anything."

Grimmjow turned away from her and stared at the red-head, who was leaking out wild and uncontrolled killing intent so much so that for a minute Grimmjow thought he was staring at a hungry hollow. Instead of jumping down in to the arena, the red-head turned away slowly, his eyes on his feet as he took the stairs.

The boy's two team-mates seemed completely unnerved. A few minutes after he left, Grimmjow decided to stretch his legs. He jumped down the stairs to the bottom level easily and stared.

There in front of him, lay two butchered bodies, their blood coating every inch of space in the hallway.

But the thing that really interested him was the souls.

Both souls remained by their bodies, looking confused and lost.

Grimmjow grinned and pounced on the free meal. The first human soul he'd had in a month. It didn't really make sense that he'd gone so long without just so that he could eat Orochimaru first.

As he swallowed the second soul, Grimmjow tensed when footsteps ran in his direction and paused in front of him.

"Grimmjow? Why'd you come down here?"

Grimmjow tilted his head to the side, not inclined to say anything, even as an odd muffled chirping reached his ears.

"Anyway, I have to go tell Kakashi-sensei to stop the match. Otherwise Sasuke will die."

In that instant, Grimmjow's senses tingled. In his current concentrated hunting mode, where every unimportant scent wasn't registered, he smelt it.

The scent of snake.

Grimmjow laughed and said, "He's here. So he's really interested in that brat."

"What?"

Grimmjow sniffed, noting two locations with the snake scent. "They're both here."

Fox-brat blinked incredulously. "Orochimaru?"

"And that helper of his. Looks like that brat's match got them all excited..."

"No way! There's no way they can just be up there without anyone noticing!" For-brat said, "You're wrong Grim..."

The cheers from the crowd above lowered and vanished abruptly.

Fox-brat looked up even as the pony-tailed boy from before came closer to them.

"That doesn't sound good," the other boy said.

A loud explosion occurred somewhere above them.

"That wasn't from the arena!"

Fox-brat turned around and raced for the stairs that went down even as Grimmjow did the same. Distant explosions filled the air as they reached the final set of stairs. When the reached the arena and stood beside a kneeling Bratty-black, Grimmjow searched for Orochimaru.

"What's going on?" Fox-brat said as he looked around in confusion.

"You two take Gaara and go. I'll join the battle."

The two foreigners, gabbed a hold of the red-head and jumped, even as Pink-hair joined them and helped Bratty-black stand up.

"Is the leader of this party Orochimaru?"

Grimmjow growled at the name, even as he got a lock on Orochimaru's white-haired helper. Orochimaru's location on the other hand seemed to be muffled by some energy.

"Who knows?" the other man said.

The brats murmured to each other, too low for Grimmjow to hear much other than 'snake-guy' and 'barrier up'.

"Sorry, but the chuunin exam is over now." The examiner glanced back at them. "You lot go and pursue that Gaara."

Grimmjow huffed and turned away to look up at the stands clearly.

"Grimmjow..." Fox-brat said.

Pink-hair interrupted him. "We'll meet up later."

He looked only at the three brats and snorted. "Doubt it. You weaklings will probably die." Grimmjow tugged on his spiritual power, jumped up and landed on a precariously thin railing. He stared directly at a black-robed man and smirked, "Yo! Orochimaru's little lapdog. Looks like you've finally stopped hiding."

"I do have a name, Grimmjow-san," the robed-man said.

"Like I give a fuck!" Grimmjow snarled. "Now, tell me where that bastard is!"

"You'll have to be more specific than that. I know a lot of bastards."

"Grimmjow!" A voice from higher up in the stands yelled. "Why didn't you go with Sasuke and the others?"

Grimmjow glanced up briefly, to note that the speaker was the brats' grey-haired teacher, ignored the question and turned back to the masked man.

"But if you call me Kabuto, I'll be happy to tell you where Orochimaru-sama is. You seem to be having trouble tracing him even though you found me so easily."

Grimmjow jumped but his prey ducked away easily.

"Oh! So you're more interested in me, Grimmjow?" The irritating bastard pulled the mask off his face, revealing a familiar face. "It's probably a good thing anyway. You'll never be able to go through that barrier to reach Orochimaru."

Now that he'd got his information, Grimmjow pulled on his spiritual energy and jumped at his opponent's throat. His teeth sunk in to soft flesh.

Soft flesh that had no life underneath.

Grimmjow spit out the useless dead body and glared to the side.

"It was nice meeting you, Grimmjow-san. But I've got to go."

"That fucker!" Grimmjow jumped down the stands eager to catch his white-haired opponent. Oddly enough the man, Kabuto, didn't hide his scent even as he moved away from the stadium.

Grimmjow followed it, using his sonido.

Just as he landed right next to the man, a group of humans all with snake patterned scarfs around their necks surrounded him allowing Kabuto to move ahead unhindered.

Grimmjow roared killing two of the humans in one strike. He clawed another one's neck and wrapped his spiked tail around another. Both died with severed arteries.

The last one managed to throw a barrage of weapons at him with an angered yell.

Grimmjow rushed through the curtain of weapons, which scratched along his armour harmlessly, and shoved his claws through the man's chest.

Seeing all five souls hovering around, Grimmjow forced himself to remember Yammy's gloating words about his Gonzui technique even though he knew Kabuto was getting away. Cursing Yammy's shitty explanation and his own memory, Grimmjow decided to give it a try anyway.

He pushed out a bit of his own spiritual energy, dispersing it in the form of a mist that was still connected to him. When the mist surrounded his targets, he pulled forcefully.

There was a second of hesitation where his spiritual energy seemed eager to disperse in to the air, but then it came back pulling the souls towards him easily. Grimmjow opened his mouth triumphantly as the condensed souls entered his body.

Energized and stronger, Grimmjow raced ahead once again catching up with Kabuto only for something else to block his way this time.

A large two-headed snake.

"You're in the way!" Grimmjow powered up a strong cero and blasted the giant snake in front of him. Running through the shower of blood and guts, Grimmjow pounced on Kabuto triumphantly.

Only for the bastard to keep running ahead while a black robe hung uselessly in Grimmjow's mouth while another group of humans surrounded him, armed to the teeth with weapons and papers he knew were explosives. Grimmjow used his sonido effectively taking them out one at a time, but for every one person he killed, more humans came and surrounded him.

Kabuto stood a little away from him, watching him with an odd smile, and said, "Keeping up with me and fighting so easily by yourself...you're more than just a normal cat. Too bad I can't learn about you as much as I want to. It really was fun Grimmjow-san." And with a wide smile and a fluttering of leaves, he vanished just as an animalistic yell of fury, coupled with an eruption of corrosive chakra from beyond the village reached Grimmjow's battle heightened senses.

Grimmjow's spiritual energy reacted with his anger and soon he was cutting through the humans around him without holding back. Different scents mingled together with the loud screams and blood splattered all over him as his claws cut through anything in their path, but Grimmjow kept fighting amd revitalizing himself with any souls that lingered close to him instead of moving on.

Eventually some humans, clad in familiar green vests, started butting in and killing off his attackers. He didn't waste any time reprimanding their impudence and kept killing anything that attacked him.

And eventually when the shadows beneath the setting sun lengthened considerably, the fighting died down.

Grimmjow spat out the blood from his last kill and looked around. Numerous dead bodies surrounded him, their blood soaking the ground beneath his feet.

He huffed tiredly, trying assess his wounds, but flopped down on the damp bloody ground. A few of the humans had gotten too lucky with the explosives. He'd been able to heal the first few times he'd been damaged, but now he was too drained.

One of the humans, the ones who'd taken his kills, said, "Damn it, we need to get him a medic! His back leg is completely ruined."

"But..."

"He's with Kakashi's team! And you saw how many Sound-nin he took down."

Grimmjow snarled. He wasn't with any team.

"Grimmjow?" A female voice called out.

He looked up at the three worn-out brats, being led towards him by an older man in a green vest, and snorted. "You weak shitheads are still alive? Was that fucker weaker than you?"

Fox-brat grinned even as he leaned heavily against the other two brats. "Team seven is super strong together!"

All three of them stumbled closer, eyeing the dead bodies carefully.

"You didn't get him," Bratty-black said. "Neither of them?"

Grimmjow just growled back. When they reached him, Bratty-black and Fox-brat sat close to him leaning back-to-back on each other heedless of the blood below.

Pink-hair, on the other hand, walked shakily to his back leg. Grimmjow winced as foreign energy pooled in his wounds, pulled his flesh and forced it back together.

Grimmjow turned to the side when he felt and hand patting his armour. He growled in warning at fox-brat, but the boy continued to pat him.

"You've gotten bigger, Grimmjow!"

Grimmjow swatted the boy's hand away, absently noting his bigger paw size, as he scratched the boy's skin and drew blood.

"So, so, you want to hear about our super awesome fight?" Fox-brat didn't bother waiting for an answer. "Anyway, we followed those sand-ninja out of the village. They were fast but they couldn't shake us off all..."

Grimmjow commiserated with those people. He too, couldn't shake off the stupid brats. He barely paid attention to the boy's rambling about toad oil and phoenix fire and who knows what else.

But Grimmjow had to know something. "Why didn't Orochimaru go after you?"

"Didn't you hear the examiner guy from before? He was in that barrier with the Hokage," Bratty-black said unhelpfully.

Fox-brat whispered. "I wonder what happened to them."


	6. Desired Strength

Grimmjow looked out at the rain through the window beside him. "There is no way I'm going out there in that for some old relic's funeral."

Bratty-black frowned at him, more specifically at Grimmjow's hind leg, shrugged and left the apartment without a word.

Grimmjow turned away from the window and stared at his bandaged hind leg too. He pushed some more spiritual energy towards it, but it didn't seem to speed up his regeneration at all.

It had started out as an ordinary explosion riddled leg, complete with the usual bleeding gashes, charred skin and broken armour, which had been fixed up by some of the human medics. But apparently one of his attackers had managed to hide a time-delayed poison in one of his wounds.

A poison that couldn't be detected when it was dormant.

A flesh-eating poison that took out a large chunk of his, then newly healed, leg muscles and promptly crippled him in seconds.

Grimmjow couldn't recall what exactly happened after that. His memories were a mesh of loud voices, agonizing pain, blood and hatred.

When he finally woke up, Grimmjow found himself on a large mattress in a somber looking room. He'd reflexively tried to stand, wary of his unfamiliar surroundings but his yelp of pain had brought a groggy Bratty-black in to the room.

And then he found out about his leg and his new place of residence. Bratty-black's living room.

It was probably an hour or more later, the rain didn't let up once, when the door opened and Bratty-black came in holding a large bag and said, "No matter what I said, they still came."

Grimmjow twitched and stared at the people behind Bratty-black.

Fox-brat came in with a large box. Pink-hair had another bag in her hand. And their teacher brought up the rear with a larger box in his hand.

"They give you gifts at a funeral?" Grimmjow eyed them all curiously.

Fox-brat huffed and looked away as he scratched at the bandages on his face. "What kind of funeral does that!"

"These," Pink-hair said and placed the bag down. "These are yours."

Grimmjow stared at the bag, curious, but closed his eyes and turned away in irritation. Just because he was staying here didn't mean he wanted to be social. He just wanted to kill that Orochimaru, get stronger and force his way back to Hueco Mundo.

"Why don't you three go back and get the rest of the stuff we left behind, hmm?"

"And what are you going to do sensei?" Fox-brat said, his voice slightly tinged with suspicion.

"Well, I really want to refresh my memory about what Natsumi get up to when she and Ka..."

Grimmjow opened his eyes when all three brats ran from the room noisily.

"Ah! They're still so cute in some ways." the grey-haired teacher said to himself and then turned to Grimmjow. "We haven't really talked a whole lot, have we, Grimmjow?"

Grimmjow stared at the man curiously.

"But I've been busy and with the way Sakura was so adamant about keeping you around after the forest, I left things alone." The man narrowed his single eye and Grimmjow tensed at the man's increased energy- both spiritual energy and chakra. "I've been patient but it's time to get things out in the open. Just what are your plans for my kids?"

Grimmjow remained silent.

The man said, "The Third said not to interfere too much because the kids needed something to cling to after everything."

Grimmjow twitched, assessed his own spiritual energy and then assessed the man in front of him. The chances of any chance of retaliation against the man weren't great, not with his useless hind leg.

"But the more I think about things, the more I realize they weren't clinging to you as their protector."

"You left me with one of your brats for a month," Grimmjow said finally, putting all of his amused malice in to his words. "And now you're worried?"

The man didn't show any outward signs of his anger but Grimmjow knew he'd said the perfect thing.

"And not just any brat, the weakest of the bunch."

The man stayed silent for a moment before he snorted. "Such a smart mouth. I really want to know about the ninja who owned you..."

Grimmjow hissed angrily and the spikes on his tail emerged quickly. "I wasn't owned by anyone!"

"You're after Orochimaru. Why?"

Grimmjow scoffed. "Why do I need a proper human reason to kill that man? I just want him dead, he's my prey."

"I see, you were Sakura's guarantee against Orochimaru. Your urge to go after him above all else made her eager to keep you close," the teacher sighed. "That Sakura is really naive."

With that at least, Grimmjow could agree. "Being so weak, I don't know what you expected from them."

The man snorted. "Ah! The others were telling me about your foul mouth around Sakura. Didn't seem to much effect on her or the other two later, right?"

Grimmjow glared at the man, wondering what was so funny.

"Isn't it obvious what they're thinking, smart mouth?" The man hmmed. "Maybe they're thinking 'oh, he must have learnt our human language wrong without knowing the actual meaning of things'. How's that sound?"

Grimmjow took a deep breath, telling himself there was no way that was true.

"My brats are stupidly thick-skinned and have probably had to hear a lot worse before," the man said almost to himself, "But they are still brats and eventually they'll realize that you're not just miming words without knowing the actual meaning."

Grimmjow twitched, more than a little annoyed at the possibility of the brats thinking he was a stupid animal who didn't mean what he was saying.

Obviously they were the stupid ones.

There was absolutely no doubt in Grimmjow's mind what the man in front of him was trying to do.

Mind-fuckery.

The annoying kind of mind-fuckery, where the man tried to make Grimmjow doubtful or something. Grimmjow felt amused be the man's pathetic attempt. After dealing with Aizen on a daily basis, Grimmjow could deal with a mere human's half-assed attempts of manipulation.

"You know, you probably won't get another chance to fight Orochimaru." The man chuckled. "I suppose you don't know. You see, Orochimaru was critically wounded after his fight with the Third. He might even die from those wounds."

Grimmjow stared at the man and growled when there were no signs of deception.

"I guess you didn't know that, huh?"

Grimmjow had to push down his immense urge to blast a gran rey cero even if it meant delaying his leg's regeneration.

"But I suppose I owe you some credit." The man closed his eye, as though to indicate he was smiling. "Before you came along, my cute little students hardly talked to each other of their own free will. Now, it seems like they're always having little secret conferences together."

Grimmjow didn't really need four legs. What he really needed was to destroy the man in front of him,

"That being said, if you hurt them, nothing will stop me from making you pay..."

Grimmjow interrupted the man with a condescending chuckle. "Are all humans so full of shit?"

The man tilted his head to the side. "You could always wait to find out. But then you might end up dead."

Grimmjow snorted.

The main door slammed open and the three brats looked between Grimmjow and their teacher.

"You three certainly took a long time to get back here."

All three brats turned to the teacher with furious glares.

"Don't pretend like you don't know why, Kakashi-sensei!" Fox-brat yelled, sounding thoroughly annoyed.

The other two brat's expression soured in anger.

Pink-hair said, "Gai-sensei cornered us and tried to lecture us about dealing with grief properly."

"He was crying the whole time!" Fox-brat said.

All three brats shuddered in unison.

Grimmjow watched the brats interact with their teacher, who pretended not to pay attention even though his attentive body language was so obvious. Grimmjow turned to his leg again and snarled softly. "Bastard Aizen, you definitely had a hand in this..."

-x-x-x-x-x-

This time it took a week, mostly spent sleeping in the silent apartment, for Grimmjow to heal his leg completely and get his spiritual energy to a respectable level.

When Bratty-black finally left the apartment with some mutterings about training, Grimmjow went to the open window and jumped out. If what that grey-haired man said was true then there was no point sticking around. Not if he wanted to kill Orochimaru before he died.

Even more than that he wanted to leave the village because the humans seemed to have lost all fear of him. His self-imposed snobbery of not eating the weak souls had led him to be considered some sort of tamed human's pet.

And more annoyingly, the pet of three human brats.

Three human brats who thought he was utterly harmless, no thanks to his lazy lack of violence against them.

Grimmjow pulled at his spiritual energy, something that had finally grown to an acceptable level even though it wasn't completely full yet, and sonido-ed past the damaged parts of the village gates without any interference from the humans.

Instead of using up his spiritual energy with continuous Sonido movement, Grimmjow ran over the uneven ground terrain, glad to give his legs some proper exercise. As he ran, Grimmjow knew it was time to be smart, so he resolved to eat any strong souls he might come across until he found Orochimaru.

He ignored the fact that he didn't actually know where Orochimaru would be. All Grimmjow knew was that he'd be damn strong by the time he found Orochimaru somehow.

The scenery around him changed rapidly as he ran. Tall and thick trees gave way to prickly shrubs and tall grass. The air grew uncomfortably sticky around him the further he ran. So uncomfortable that he felt like stopping and scratching at his body armour at times.

Eventually he picked up a new plethora of scents. Smoke and metal. Scents of definite human civilization somewhere up ahead. When he reached a large wooden fence, Grimmjow used his pesquisa. He took a deep breath, not winded much by his long run, and sorted through the information relayed back to him through his pesquisa technique.

Grimmjow growled in satisfaction at his luck. His first stop and he'd already found three strong souls.

Three sources to improve his spiritual energy.

Grimmjow rushed ahead, ignoring the humans' squawks of surprise and stopped in front of a normal looking wooden building. When he confirmed the location of the souls amongst other souls with another use of his pesquisa, Grimmjow jumped up on to the air and blasted a weak and controlled cero at the wall.

As the wooden wall blasted inward in a shower of smoke, dust and splinters, Grimmjow rushed in with a triumphant growl, preparing another stronger cero only to stop in surprise. "What the..."

"Grimm...jow?" Bratty-black coughed and rubbed his neck as he tried to pull himself up from his fallen position on the ground.

"Why the fuck are you here?" Grimmjow berated himself for getting distracted and turned to the person he'd been aiming at with his attacks. The person who'd dodged his first attack easily.

A red-eyed man, wearing a black coat emblazoned with red clouds, flicked his eyes between Grimmjow and Bratty-black for a mere second before concentrating completely on Grimmjow.

Grimmjow, on the other hand, kept staring between the man and Bratty-black and even sniffed the air curiously. Everything could easily be summed up with one sentence. "What the fuck?"

"They're brothers!" A voice supplied helpfully from the other end of the hallway.

Grimmjow glanced in that direction and groaned as he caught a flash of unmistakable bright orange. "Both of you? Fuck! How unlucky can I be..." For an annoyed moment, Grimmjow was tempted to think that everything since the forest was just one of Aizen's illusions.

Then he berated himself for his prissy thoughts, looked at the red-eyed man and snarled. "It doesn't matter who you are."

Bratty-black's brother stared at him with a perfect Ulquiorra expression of indifference. And that more than anything made Grimmjow sure that he was actually quite interested.

"Loads of people keep interrupting us today before we can actually attack properly, huh, Itachi-san? And this time, it's not even a person."

Grimmjow turned in the direction of the voice and stared at the blue-skinned man with prominent gills and round eyes wearing the same red clouds on black coat. "Fish? Maybe I should have attacked you first."

Fish-man chuckled. "Little kitty there thinks he can take me on?"

"I eat fish like you for breakfast," Grimmjow retorted seriously but turned back to the unmoving red-eyed man.

Before he could jump up, the floor under him, in fact every inch of the hallway, softened and became uncomfortably sticky. Grimmjow turned to the end of the hallway again, berating himself for forgetting that there were three opponents, and saw an old man crouched down with a smug smile.

"Too bad Itachi, Kisame. You're entrapped in a toad oesophagus. There's no escape for you."

Grimmjow stared at the old man, an ally apparently, wondering how anyone could look so smug and stupid at the same time. How was Grimmjow supposed to stop Bratty-black's brother from potentially escaping through the large hold he'd created with his entrance? He turned slightly and twitched when he saw that the hole he'd created was closed up with flesh.

Nonetheless, Grimmjow pushed his spiritual energy to his feet and tugged. But that only made the flesh underneath him pull him down deeper.

"Kisame, come!"

And without any difficulty, both coat-wearing men, pulled their feet out of the flesh easily and ran in the other direction away from Grimmjow and the hole he'd created. Even as Bratty-black yelled in angry frustration, Grimmjow roared at both men, sending out sharp waves of his spiritual energy at the retreating backs.

Fish-man blindly swiped his sword behind him and effectively absorbed all of Grimmjow's attacks even as he ran.

With a large blast of energy that shook their surroundings, a hole appeared in front of the retreating men.

And they disappeared.

The old man seemed to lose concentration on his technique. Grimmjow immediately freed himself from the flesh underneath him and ran towards the newly created hole. From the curses behind him, he knew that all three humans were following him.

When they reached it, Grimmjow stared at the flickering black flames that licked at the edges of the large hole. Grimmjow gasped at the sheer amount of spiritual energy he could feel from the flames even without having to concentrate.

"Don't go so near to the flames, you brat," the old man said. "Let me deal with this."

Grimmjow breathed out his own spiritual energy towards the flames in desperation. Hoping that his bastardized version of Gonzui actually worked, he pulled.

There was a strong resistance as the flames flickered menacingly.

Grimmjow pushed out more of his spiritual energy and pulled once again. And after what seemed like ages, but was actually only a matter of seconds, the flames detached from the wall with a slight hiss.

All three humans grew wary, if their panicked curses were anything to go by.

With a stronger tug, the flames condensed in to a small black ball and whooshed in to Grimmjow's wide opened mouth.

"Holy hot springs! That's the Grimmjow you've been raving about, right?" The old man said, "You never told me about this ability."

Grimmjow stared back at the humans barely paying attention to their conversation as he felt his spiritual energy buzz comfortably.

"Damn it!" Bratty-black huffed and struggled forward even as he leaned against Fox-brat's side.

"Stop it!" Fox-brat said in obvious irritation. "How are you going to go and fight your brother when you're like this?"

"Shut up! I can..."

The old man snorted, bent down and poked Bratty-black's chest curiously. "Looks like a bruised rib at least. And with an additional broken wrist, just how do you plan on fighting Itachi? Going to wait for more unexpected guests to distract him in the middle of the fight."

Bratty-black actually snarled back.

"Face the facts, kid. You're no match for Itachi. The only reason you're still conscious right now is because he was interrupted from finishing you off."

"Ero-sennin!" Fox-brat said in an almost disapproving tone.

The old man huffed and turned away from them to examine the hole.

But Bratty-black just glared. "You and Sakura don't have to keep coddling me like a kid!"

Fox-brat twitched. "Coddle?"

"And even you," Bratty-black turned to Grimmjow angrily. "I never expected you to butt in like that."

"Well, since you don't need any help!" Fox-brat immediately moved away from Bratty-black, allowing the boy to fall to the ground with a solid thump and a pained grimace.

Grimmjow, feeling oddly sedate after processing the spiritual energy from the black flames, laughed at Bratty-black's fall. He laughed even harder when a green clad man jumped in through the hole and drop-kicked the old man in the face.

As the newcomer proceeded to apologize profusely and then talk seriously, Grimmjow felt his stomach clench and rumble.

"I'm not leaving!" Bratty-black said, staring between both men with determination. "If he's after Naruto, then I'm not leaving."

The old man huffed, poked the boy's wrist and sighed in exasperation when the boy bit his lip in an attempt to stifle a pained cry.

Fox-brat glared at Bratty-black. "I don't need you to coddle me either, you moron! Don't butt in to things that don't concern you."

The old man actually twitched and rubbed his forehead in irritation. "Look, Sasuke, right? Naruto and me and going to be travelling a lot because we need to find someone important, and with an injury you'd just get in the way."

Fox-brat nodded. "Yeah, exactly! I'd rather have Grimmjow come."

Everyone turned to Grimmjow simultaneously. Grimmjow stared at them. "Did you practise that? Total synchronization and everything, shit..." Then he laughed at his own words.

"Err..."

The old man shook his head. "Who'd have thought that Uchiha Itachi's strongest flame technique is actually some sort of cat nip?"

"Itachi? So that's the Ulquiorra look-alike's name?" Grimmjow looked up happily. "Perfect. It's a good name for strong prey."

"Now, I'm definitely not leaving!" Bratty-black said. "If he gets to stay, I'll stay too. I'm supposed to take care of him anyway."

"Didn't you leave him back in Konoha when you came here?" Fox-brat said dully and rolled his eyes.

"Oi! You little punks! We outrank you so..."

"Oh my! This damage looks terrible," a young lady's voice interrupted the old man's angered yells.

Grimmjow sniffed in the lady's direction and jumped close to the new-comer.

"Crap!" Fox-brat said, "Grimmjow don't..."

Grimmjow stretched and purred. "Fish?"

"Oh my!" The lady smiled. "What a friendly cat! Of course, we have some fish in the kitchen for you..."

The old man jumped forward with a wide smile and said, "Madame, you are too kind to us, especially when we've damaged your beautiful establishment."

"Shinobi-san, I..."

"Don't worry, I'll definitely pay you double for all damages as long as you can spare some fish for my cat there. You see, I worry about him since I trained him," the old man said, "From the time he was a tiny kitten that could fit in my palm."

The Lady gasped as they walked away.

Fox-brat smacked his forehead. "Stupid ero-sennin. Looks like you're coming with us, Grimmjow."

"Oh! My eternal rival. The bonds your youthful pupils have created in such a short time moves me to tears..."

Both brats looked at each other, their previous argument temporarily forgotten, with wild panic as the green-clad man burst in to tears.

Grimmjow laughed.


	7. Under Control

"Fuck that shitty old man!" Grimmjow clawed at his neck again, trying to scratch away the irritating papers stuck on his armour. A paper that had been put on him without his knowledge. "How can one tiny piece of paper be so fucking annoying?"

"It's a seal," Bratty-black said, scratched a thick black design that covered his uninjured arm and placed a sandaled foot on the wall next to him carefully.

"Did I ask you?"

Bratty-black shrugged, kept his bandaged hand close to his body and walked up the wall, till he stepped on the ceiling. He stopped at the centre of the ceiling and hung upside down like an odd ceiling fixture.

Grimmjow scoffed at the action, something that had become familiar over the past few days, and redoubled his efforts to remove the seals from his neck. "Stupid Itachi and his fucked up flames."

Bratty-black fell but landed in a crouch just as he reached the floor. He murmured angrily to himself before walking back up on the wall.

"Stupid old man sealing all my spiritual energy..." Grimmjow growled. "How'd he even know to do that?"

The was a slight snort from the boy above him.

"And stupid seals for actually working." Grimmjow said, "Fuck, why can't I remove this shitty thing? It's been on for three days."

Bratty-black stared down at him from him crouched position on the ceiling.

"Fuck!" Grimmjow scratched at his neck one last time before he slumped down to the floor in irritation. He eyed the long strips of paper on the walls around him, knowing from previous experience that they were connected to the seals on his neck. If he tried to leave the room or destroy the paper strips, the seals on him would activate and paralyse him. "Can't even kill the shitty man because he'll just stop me through these things."

"You shouldn't have eaten those flames," Bratty-black said from the ceiling.

"I didn't ask for your fucking opinion."

"Because you ate those flames that guy had the chance to put those seals on you ," the brat reiterated fearlessly.

"Then how'd he put that seal on your arm?" Grimmjow growled up. "That seal keeps you stuck in this room like me."

Bratty-black frowned. "He would have sent me back."

Grimmjow stretched out across his floor and stayed still for a few moments. But he groaned. "Damn that annoying thumping."

"Are you still complaining about your heartbeat?"

"It's not my heartbeat. I don't have a heart," Grimmjow said as he thumped his tail against the floor, hoping to drown out the loud beating in his ears. A beating that had seemingly started only after the seals has been put on.

"Repeating that doesn't make it true."

Grimmjow narrowed his eyes at the boy. "That brother of yours is pretty strong."

Bratty-black stayed silent, but from the past few days of being forcefully stuck with the boy's company Grimmjow knew his taunts would get results soon.

"He'd be fun to fight with at full power," Grimmjow said.

Bratty-black tensed and took deep breaths, physically forced himself to stay calm.

Grimmjow sighed exaggeratedly. "I don't know how you two are brothers especially with that power difference."

Bratty-black growled, lost control of whatever technique kept him up on the ceiling and fell in a tangle of limbs.

Grimmjow laughed and resumed his taunting when the boy climbed back up the wall again.

When it finally got dark, Fox-brat and the old man returned. The old man looked at the battered Bratty-black and sighed. "You're still falling from the chakra climbing exercise? I expected more from you."

Bratty-black just rolled his eyes in frustration but stayed silent after shooting Grimmjow a nasty glare.

Grimmjow turned away and eyed the old man for an opening.

"You're thinking of attacking me again, aren't you?" The old man said with an amused smirk.

Grimmjow barred his teeth and growled.

"Go ahead," the man said and spread his arms mockingly. "But this time, instead of just paralysing you, I'll make those seals knock you out completely."

"Ero-sennin!" Fox-brat said indignantly.

The old man just sighed and lowered his arms. "I'm not removing those seals and that's final, Naruto."

"What about..."

The old man snorted. "I'm not removing the seal I put on Sasuke either."

Bratty-black glared at his uninjured arm. Or more specifically the vivid black design on his uninjured arm.

Grimmjow made a conscious effort not to attack the infuriating man.

"Besides," the old man said, "the chicks dig a man who can tame an exotic pet. It just screams power and wealth."

Grimmjow jumped. Even though the seal on his back burned, Grimmjow felt victorious at the jagged scratches he'd managed to put on the old man's arm just before he got paralysed.

-x-x-x-x-x-

Grimmjow was more than relieved when they resumed travelling. Days of being locked in a room with only Bratty-black, via the seals, had become boring. Bratty-black had grown immune to his taunts and it took a lot more effort for Grimmjow to make him fall from the ceiling.

Fox-brat was usually away most of the time. When he did come back though, he was usually out cold before Grimmjow could draw any blood.

And the old man. Well, the less said about him and his shitty paralysing seals, the better.

"Do we need to go all the way to Tanzaku-gai?" Fox-brat whined.

"Yes! Did you forget the main reason I took you out of Konoha?"

Fox-brat concentrated on the small round balloon in his hand. "I just came for the training. I don't care about the old hag."

"You'll never be able to finish learning that technique if you don't come with me." The annoying old man retorted easily.

Fox-brat grumbled to himself but followed the man after sharing a look with an equally annoyed Bratty-black.

Grimmjow scratched at the seals on his neck one more time before he followed the odd group out of the village and on to dusty and unused roads. Even though he didn't want to, Grimmjow walked close to the Fox-brat and watched as the boy kept trying to condense his energy into the small balloon.

Watching the boy force his chakra, into something that resembled a cero slightly kept Grimmjow occupied during all the stops they made. Because every time the chakra unravelled and escaped from Fox-brat's control, Grimmjow tried to latch on to the free-floating spiritual energy portion of the chakra.

It never worked, but Grimmjow never stopped trying.

When they finally reach their destination, the brats' stomachs rumbled in hunger signalling dinner time. Even though he hadn't eaten anything- fish or souls- in a few days, Grimmjow didn't feel hungry.

Without the constant thrum of his spiritual energy and the annoying beating of his apparent 'heart', Grimmjow didn't even feel like devouring a human soul. That along with the oppressive seals just made Grimmjow hate the old man even more.

The old man mocked the brats' noisy stomachs but he asked for directions to a restaurant from one of the passer-bys.

"Do they even sell food in a place like that?" Fox-brat asked when they stopped in front of a noisy bar.

The old man just snorted and pushed up one of the hangings. "Obviously, now get moving…" He shoved both brats inside. "Oh? You're staying outside?"

Grimmjow deliberately settled down by the entrance.

"All right." The old man pulled out a piece of paper, tapped it twice with a glowing finger and shoved it back into his pocket. "You won't be able to go anywhere until we come back out."

Grimmjow growled as one of the seals on his neck pulsed uncomfortably for a few seconds before the man entered the noisy bar. Finally alone, Grimmjow closed his eyes and searched for his spiritual energy.

He was so lost in the unnatural emptiness of his mind with only the thumping in his ears, that he was completely surprised when the ground under him shuddered violently. Grimmjow opened his eyes, his body poised to pounce and fight, but promptly lost interest when he saw the brats in front of a big-chested blonde lady.

Grimmjow eyed the deep fissure in the ground that started in front of the lady. Hating that he couldn't gauge her spiritual power, Grimmjow watched as Fox-brat argued loudly with the blonde woman before agreeing to a bet with her.

When the blonde woman turned to leave, the old man said, "Tsunade, let's have a drink together."

The woman paused.

"Shizune," the old man said to another younger-looking woman with black hair. "Why don't you take the brats and their mascot over there to find a hotel room for the night."

Everyone turned to Grimmjow.

The old man pulled out a small piece of paper, the seal from before, and shoved it into the black-haired woman's hand. "Don't worry about him." He leaned down and whispered something too soft for Grimmjow to catch.

When Grimmjow entered their hotel room, he ignored everyone around him and jumped on to a bed.

"Are you staying here?" Fox-brat asked the black-haired woman.

"Ah! No, I'll just put this up." She held up the seal and pushed it on to the room's door, where it glowed for a second before merging seamlessly with the wood. "Also, Sasuke-kun, show me you hand..."

Grimmjow ignored the customary pulse of the seals on him and returned to his meditative state, searching for his elusive spiritual energy. He remained lost in his mind until a voice spoke somewhere close to him.

"You're sure these seals aren't making him sick?"

"What do you expect me to do to him, Sasuke?" Another male voice replied.

"He's not the same!" Bratty-black said, his flat voice sounding slightly high-pitched with anger.

The other voice, the old man, said, "What's wrong with him being well-behaved?" He sighed heavily. "Did you feel any different with the seal I put on your hand?"

"No."

"There's your proof."

"He would have noticed Orochimaru's lingering presence if he was fine!" Bratty-black said.

Grimmjow flinched in surprise. Orochimaru had been close by and he'd never even noticed. Why hadn't he noticed?

"What?"

"He's not some ordinary cat!"

Grimmjow opened his eyes and squinted at the bright sunlight streaming in to the hotel room. "Shitty sunlight." He grumbled, stretched and looked at Bratty-black. "Orochimaru?"

Bratty-black glared at the older man in the room but nodded at Grimmjow. "He destroyed a castle before we got here yesterday."

Grimmjow turned to the older man and said, "I'm going outside."

The old man looked genuinely surprised that Grimmjow had spoken to him directly. "What?"

Grimmjow barred his teeth, unsheathed his claws and growled even as he flicked his tail menacingly in the air.

The old man snorted. "Yeah, like that's going to work on me."

Bratty-black interfered. After a heated argument, all three of them left the room and stopped at Fox-brat's secluded training area. Grimmjow watched closely as the man set up the seal on the ground but still didn't figure out how to undo the subduing power of the seals.

Noticing a small pond a little away, Grimmjow moved towards it with a new plan of freedom. Surely, water soaked paper would destroy the seals. There had to be a reason that the man had stuck Grimmjow in a room without any water sources.

He jumped into the water, trying to act completely natural at the foreign sensation of being submerged in water and waited. Even though minutes passed and he knew the paper should have been soaked through, Grimmjow still couldn't feel his spiritual energy. A sure sign that his plan had failed.

Grimmjow kicked his limbs and pushed his head above the water only to stare as Bratty-black, no longer sporting an injured hand, placed a foot on the water surface tentatively.

The old man stood by the bank. "This is the next step to better chakra control. The better your control the more times you can use Kakashi's chidori."

Bratty-black huffed and placed his other foot on the water. He balanced precariously for a few seconds before he wobbled and sunk in to the water. As soon as the brat pulled himself up on the water surface again, Grimmjow jostled the water turbulently with his body and laughed as the brat sunk again.

-x-x-x-x-x-

After close to a week of being outside and away from the annoying old man, Grimmjow was not pleased when the black-haired lady used the stupid seal to make him follow her back to the room.

He was close to rage when she berated him for letting the brats exhaust themselves with training.

Bratty-black huffed as he stumbled beside the lady. Thankfully it silenced her as she carried an unconscious Fox-brat all the way to the hotel bed and called the big-chested blonde lady.

Grimmjow watched at the blonde lady's hands glowed green as she examined both brats.

Before he could blink, two fingers prodded the top of his head and a seal on his neck.

The world turned dark until insistent shaking woke Grimmjow.

"I thought you wanted to deal with Orochimaru?"

Grimmjow opened his eyes blearily and glared up at the old man as his body throbbed. "Asshole."

"I'm not the one who activated your seal," the old man said and jumped out of the window unsteadily.

Grimmjow followed the four humans out of the village, pushing his body to keep up with their speed since he couldn't use his own spiritual energy. When he heard about Orochimaru's ability to bring back dead souls, Grimmjow wondered if Orochimaru was somehow the key to getting back to Heuco Mundo.

When they stopped in the middle of a newly made crater, Grimmjow tracked Orochimaru's scent and ran.

"Grimmjow! Wait for us..."

"Damn cat!"

When they finally caught sight of battle, the old man's energy swirled around all of them and with a puff of smoke they all landed in front of a familiar face.

Grimmjow growled. "Lapdog!"

"You're still not going to call me Kabuto, Grimmjow-san?"

Fox-brat twitched. "You're really creepy, Kabuto-san."

"That's why he's working with Orochimaru, idiot," Bratty-black said.

"Sasuke-kun, we didn't expect you to be here." Kabuto pushed his glasses up and smiled. "But it works in Orochimaru's favour."

"Out of the way!"

Grimmjow jumped aside as the old man fell over uselessly and the blonde lady ran forward, intent on hitting Orochimaru's helper. But Kabuto sliced his weapon across his own hand and grinned as blood sprayed out.

The blonde lady froze long enough for Kabuto to shove her back.

"She's afraid of blood?" Bratty-black said almost to himself as he threw a barrage of weapons at the man.

Fox-brat sent a pair of clones forward and said, "I thought she was a medic."

Kabuto jumped back and landed beside Orochimaru in a crouch.

"Shizune," the old guy said, "you'll have to take care of glasses, while I deal with Orochimaru."

"But Jiraiya-sama, Tsunade-sama can't remove the poison from you in her current state."

"Doesn't matter, I have back-up." The old man turned slightly. "You two brats, protect Tsunade, if Orochimaru gets her we're screwed."

The brats looked liked they wanted to argue.

"Looks like they're summoning." The old man moved closer to Grimmjow and chuckled. "Since my chakra is messed up right now, I think your time for being useful has come."

Grimmjow froze when the man easily ripped off the seals from his neck in one swift motion just as a thick cloud of smoke surrounded Orochimaru. Grimmjow's spiritual energy, wild and slightly uncontrollable, hummed all over his body drowning out the annoying 'heartbeat'. It felt like his reserves were filled to the brim.

It was a sensation that Grimmjow hadn't felt since he'd left Heuco Mundo.

But along with that energy came familiar needs that had been missing over the past few days. A need to maim, kill and eat.

Grimmjow looked up as the smoke cleared and the large two-headed snake that had been summoned and purred in anticipation.

When both snake heads lunged, Grimmjow pulled his spiritual energy and opened his mouth. In an explosion of blue, he decimated one snake head just as a small marsh appeared below the snake's body and hampered it's movements.

"Awesome!" Fox-brat yelled from behind Grimmjow. "Crap! Sasuke, where's that old hag?"

Bratty-black cursed. "Kabuto's attacking her."

As they both left, Grimmjow ran forward waiting for his spiritual energy to settle enough to use sonido accurately. Behind him, there was a loud crash and the sounds of crumbling rock.

Grimmjow looked back to see an injured Kabuto slumped against broken rock while Fox-brat stood triumphantly. He snorted and jumped on to the remaining snake head but paused when Bratty-black yelled and loud chirping filled the air.

Even as he turned back, Grimmjow saw Orochimaru's body cut through the air away from the snake and towards the prone form of Fox-brat. Not knowing exactly what was going on but eager to kill Orochimaru, Grimmjow destroyed the remaining snake head with another cero and sonido-ed after the man. He landed on Orochimaru's body with outstretched claws just as Orochimaru plunged a sword into the blonde-woman's chest.

Taking advantage of Orochimaru's immobility, Grimmjow released a cero point-blank on Orochimaru's spine.

An explosive shower of rock and dirt showed that Orochimaru had escaped his claws.

He sonido-ed away from the falling debris and landed close to Fox-brat's head.

"Tsunade and that jungle-cat? An amusing combination, but do you think you'll be able to stop me."

Grimmjow didn't feel the need to answer. He sonido-ed in front of Orochimaru, flipped in mid-air when Orochimaru's sword rushed at his head and latched his spiked tail around Orochimaru's neck.

Grimmjow hissed when the sword cut through his body armour easily and dug deep into his flesh with the tell-tale burn of poison. Orochimaru pulled the sword out with a squelch and aimed for Grimmjow's tail. Unwilling to lose his tail, Grimmjow uncurled it from Orochimaru's neck making sure to drag the spikes across Orochimaru's front.

A foot to Grimmjow's slow-regenerating injured side kicked him away.

"Step aside, Tsunade. There's no need for you to protect that brat."

Even as he fell, Grimmjow sonido-ed and landed behind Orochimaru just as the sword swung down and cut across the blonde woman's chest. Grimmjow slashed his claws at Orochimaru's neck.

Orochimaru's neck stretched, flexed and twisted. The sword clanged against his energy coated claws. Grimmjow jumped back and roared at Orochimaru as a stumbling Bratty-black pulled the unconscious Fox-brat away from the fight area.

As Orochimaru parried the roar attack with his sword, Grimmjow glanced in the direction Bratty-black had been in. Kabuto lay in a puddle of blood but he was watching the fight.

Orochimaru's sword crashed down in to the ground as Grimmjow sondio-ed close to Orochimaru's body and slashed his claws against soft flesh. Blood dripped down Orochimaru's blackened arms.

"Orochimaru!" The blonde-haired woman yelled and punched Orochimaru backwards. Grimmjow hissed as a large amount of energy erupted around the blond woman and temporarily froze his movements.

"No need to protect him?" The energy condensed around the woman and her wounds closed with a sizzle. "Don't be stupid! This is my duty as the Fifth Hokage."

"So, I'm not the only one making new jutsu," Orochimaru said even as he jumped towards Kabuto's prone body.

When he felt the rise of energy from three different spots around him, Grimmjow sonido-ed away and landed close to the brats just as three large creatures- an orange toad, a purple snake and a white slug- appeared amidst thick bouts of smoke. "What the fuck..."

The black-haired lady landed close to them on a slug, Grimmjow's size. "Sasuke-kun, did Kabuto use a poison attack? Come on, we need to get away. Their fight isn't something we can be close to or intervene."

Grimmjow scoffed. "Yeah, ri..."

The ground trembled as all three creatures moved.

The slug spit out a thick viscous liquid at the snake. The snake dodged and the liquid burnt through the rock behind it as the snake curled it's body around the slug and squeezed just as the toad jumped forward with it's large sword.

The slug burst in to tiny slugs, escaping the choke-hold just as the toad jumped back from the snake and spit out black liquid that exploded around the snake.

Grimmjow blinked.

The snake lunged at the toad with a wide open maw. But the blonde woman, jumped down with the large sword and impaled the snake through the mouth.

Just as Grimmjow leaned forward to sonido to Orochimaru, the large purple snake vanished in a puff of smoke. "No!"

In a rush of air, Grimmjow landed in front of the large toad just as Orochimaru's body melted in to ground. He shot an overpowered cero but only rocks and debris exploded upwards.


	8. Official Pawn

Grimmjow sniffed at the blue crystal pendant that hung around Fox-brat's neck.

"Stop it!" Fox-brat huffed and moved away.

Grimmjow growled in annoyance.

"Just let him finish whatever he's doing before we meet up with them," Bratty-black said as he walked beside them. "What if they decide to put more seals on him?"

Fox-brat groaned but stood still, allowing Grimmjow to sniff at the pendant till he was satisfied.

"Well..." Fox-brat said, "What did you get from all the sniffing?"

Grimmjow glanced at the blue crystal once again and said, "old energy."

Fox-brat grabbed the pendant and examined it curiously. "You mean chakra."

Grimmjow just stared at him dully.

"So it's got old chakra in it." Fox-brat nodded sagely. "I wonder if that makes it worth more money."

Bratty-black tsk-ed in annoyance. "You can't sell that."

"It's mine. I can do whatever I want with it."

"Moron!" Bratty-black glared at him. "It's a status symbol."

Fox-brat shrugged. "Yeah, but would anyone really see it on me?"

"What?"

Fox-brat chuckled. "Nothing. Come on, let's go buy some more food before we meet up with the old people."

"Tch! You're the one who skipped eating to fight with that lady."

"That lady?" Fox-brat smothered a laugh. "You're scared of her super-strong hits!"

Bratty-black huffed but glared at the vendor he'd stopped at. After buying a large box, he shoved it in Fox-brat's hand and said, "Her seals are more annoying."

Grimmjow growled in agreement and scratched at his neck absently.

Both brats looked at Grimmjow with a wince.

"At least we know she'll be a strong Hokage?" Fox-brat said.

Grimmjow snapped. "That stupid bitch. How dare she put these damn seals on me. Making me follow you two brats like some mindless animal... "

"It's probably worse than when Ero-sennin did it last time, right?" Fox-brat said as he swallowed some food. "This time you were completely yourself when she put those seals on you."

"She cheated!" Grimmjow snarled.

"She's a medic-nin," Bratty-black said blandly. "You can't call it cheating."

"Shut up!" Grimmjow said. "She cheated and that's final."

"Oh?"

Grimmjow tensed at the mocking female voice and glared at the speaker.

"Are you still complaining about my victory?" the old lady, no, Tsunade said.

"Don't act so smug about your lucky hit, bitch."

Tsunade snorted. "Do you need to resort to name-calling to feel more secure?"

Grimmjow glared at the woman, but then he snorted as he remembered how she really looked. "Hag."

Tsunade twitched.

"Wrinkly old hag," Grimmjow said, enunciating every word clearly.

She snapped and flicked a finger at his side.

Grimmjow pooled his spiritual energy to the side and held his ground with slight difficulty. He ignored the slight twinge of pain and barred his teeth at her in taunting victory. It was good to confirm that they hadn't sealed his spiritual energy again.

"I told you he's an amusing one, Tsunade," the old man said with a smirk.

Grimmjow stared at him for a second, still unable to believe that the old man- Jiraiya, Grimmjow mentally corrected himself- was on par with Orochimaru as well.

Tsunade tsk-ed in annoyance and walked a little bit ahead of their group with her black-haired companion.

"How'd you do that, Grimmjow?" Fox-brat asked in excitement. "She was really trying to beat you up."

Grimmjow walked forward smugly.

"He probably used his energy as an internal shield against Tsunade's attack," Jiraiya said. "That would have been very useful when she attacked me years ago."

Grimmjow didn't feel like explaining.

"Woah!" Fox-brat said and then lowered his voice, "So if we do something like that then we can survive stuff like Ba-san's hit too?"

"No." Jiraiya said, "If people could do something like that easily, Tsunade's strength wouldn't be so feared."

"Kabuto probably survived by using that." Bratty-black said.

"Are you still grumpy that he managed to poison you?"

"I used the chidori on him," Bratty-black said.

"And Naruto used his rasengan before that, I know," Jiraiya said, "I was there."

"He should have died!"

Grimmjow snorted and vindictively said, "And yet half-dead, he still managed to poison you."

"You gave him a nice hole but you didn't hit his heart. Tsunade said he had some advanced regeneration technique. Let that be a lesson for you." Jiraiya shrugged. "Every good ninja needs a fall-back cheat to survive."

Bratty-black turned to Grimmjow thoughtfully.

-x-x-x-x-x-

"Fuck!" Grimmjow said to himself, three days later, as he looked up at the large familiar mountain with the carved faces. "I can't believe I'm back here."

"You'll fix Kakashi-sensei first, right?" Fox-brat said and looked pleadingly at Tsunade.

"She'll need to meet up with the elders first. She's the new Hokage after all," Jiraiya said, giving them a serious look. "Kakashi can wait a few minutes."

"Don't worry brats," Tsunade said, "I'll check on Kakashi as soon as I can."

Unfortunately for Grimmjow, the seal ensured that he followed the brats as they went around the village. And it didn't take long for them to head to the hospital.

"Sakura!" Fox-brat said happily as he entered the hospital room. "There's no need to worry any more. This lady is a good doctor. Kakashi-sensei will be all right in no time."

Pink-hair turned to them distractedly. Her eyes sharpened as she took in their appearance and then she walked towards them with a sniff.

"Sakura-chan, don't cry..."

Noting her rising spiritual energy, Grimmjow moved away from the two brats and chuckled when she simultaneously punched both boys in the stomach.

"You useless… gah! Do you know how worried I was?" Pink-hair glared at the stunned boys. "When I heard Kakashi-sensei was in a coma and I couldn't find either of you, do you have any idea what it was like to...What kind of team-mates just leave without a word?" She paused and rubbed her eyes. "And then Gai-sensei found me and wouldn't stop crying when he finally told me about you two...You morons! You even took Grimmjow with you."

Grimmjow twitched in annoyance. "They didn't take me anywhere. I left on my own, stupid brat."

Pink-hair turned to him and she sniffed loudly. "You're all idiots."

"You're taking it too easy on them." Tsunade chuckled. "Now let me take a look at your sensei and wake him up."

Grimmjow turned and stared at the prone figure on the bed. "So he really lost to that Itachi? I thought he was stronger than that."

"He is. He probably just did something stupid to lose." Tsunade snorted and held a green glowing hand to the unconscious man's forehead until he opened a groggy eye. "You were beaten by two enemies? I thought you were a genius, Hatake."

Even though Grimmjow hated the lady, he couldn't stop himself from laughing.

The brats' teacher looked around the room blandly, pausing oddly as he stared at a vase holding a bright and fresh flower.

"Sensei?" Pink-hair said carefully.

"Why are you all here?" He asked not looking away from the flower.

Fox-brat scoffed. "Don't be stupid, Kakashi-sensei! Where else are we supposed to be?"

Bratty-black just rolled his eyes and took a seat on the window ledge.

"I actually came here hoping you'd die," Grimmjow said.

The grey-haired man turned to him blearily. His single eye closed in amusement as he said slowly, "Nice ink-work you got there."

Grimmjow growled and jumped forward. "Bastard!"

-x-x-x-x-x-

"Team seven, do you know why I've called you here?" Tsunade asked as she stared at all of them critically.

"You're giving us a mission?" Fox-brat volunteered after a few moments of silence.

"No! You lot won't get a mission when Kakashi is out on a mission." Tsunade said, "We're here to talk about your new team-addition. I've only been here for three days, but already people have expressed concern over your close association with an unknown nin-animal."

Everyone turned to Grimmjow.

Grimmjow snarled. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Tsunade stared directly at him. "Right now, you're considered to be a weapon. A useful weapon, but a weapon that's not being controlled properly."

"He's not a weapon!" Fox-brat yelled.

"No way, that's..." Pink-hair stumbled over her words. "Grimmjow isn't our…we don't want to control him. I mean, he's just our ally against Orochimaru."

"Many ninja witnessed his..." Tsunade held up a scroll and read, " 'blood-thirsty fighting style'. The only reason they didn't do anything back then was because they thought he was under your team's control. But now, the higher-ups are worried that he's not really being controlled."

"Damn right, I'm not under the brats' control," Grimmjow said.

"Yes, well that's the problem." Tsunade said calmly. "Someone suggested that you be given to more experienced ninja."

Bratty-black said, "Why?"

"They'd be able to tame him better for Konoha."

Grimmjow snarled and all the brats made noises of protest.

"But you put those seals on him!" Fox-brat said, "That has to count for something. I mean he has to go wherever Sasuke goes or that seal activates, right?"

"Since I'm controlling those seals, it just adds to the notion that you three can't control him."

"That's why I wanted to leave this village, before all these fucking complications could come up," Grimmjow said. "Stupid hag, you should have let me chase after Orochimaru."

Tsunade frowned. "Setting you free now will cause problems for team seven."

"That doesn't concern me."

"But more than that, you'll definitely be captured by," Tsunade paused and narrowed her eyes. "Well, let's just say the person who captures you will not stick to just seals to keep you relatively 'tame'."

"No one can capture me," Grimmjow said confidently.

"I put those seals on you after when I was injured," Tsunade said.

"You cheated, hag. In a one-on-one fight, I'd..."

Tsunade slammed her hand against the wooden desk. "The others will cheat even more than me, stupid cat."

Fox-brat interrupted their argument. "So what do we do?"

"Wait," Bratty-black said. "Let me try something." His black eyes shifted in to red with two black spots that whirled around.

Grimmjow stared at the red eyes for a few moments. "What are you trying?"

The red eyes disappeared in a blink. "My eyes don't work on you."

Grimmjow snorted. "If that was some sort of seduction, then you're more messed up than I initially thought."

Bratty-black shot him an icy glare.

"You never tried using your sharingan on him before?" Tsunade asked.

Bratty-black shrugged.

"You suicidal brats! You took in an unknown nin-animal without any safeguards in case it attacked you?" Tsunade chewed on her thumb in irritation. "And that Hatake just let things be? I have half a mind to take him off teaching duty."

"You can't do that, ba-san!"

"Shut up! It's a miracle you three are alive after taking that cat in."

"I'm Panther King, you hag! I'm not a fucking pet cat."

"No way!" Fox-brat gasped. "A king?"

Tsunade rubbed her forehead. "Every new bit of information from you lot makes things worse."

"What if," Pink-hair cleared her throat awkwardly and said, "What if the three of us controlled different seals on him?" She glanced at Grimmjow nervously and said, "they could even just be seals for show, just you know..."

"I was thinking of the same idea." Tsunade snorted. "But he's getting real seals. The idea of you three controlling his different seals, especially if I keyed them to only answer to you. If they have problems with the amount of power you three have, my own ability with seals will be a per..."

"Sakura," Grimmjow said.

The boys twitched in surprise and Pink-hair stared at him in shock. "Yes?"

"I never hurt you when I stayed with you." Grimmjow lowered his voice, making it sound slightly more emotional. "So do I really need seals that control me?"

"Hah! Nice try, but it's useless trying to sweet-talk your way out of this. It's happening, one way or another," Tsunade said with a loud laugh. "It'll save me loads of the political headaches."

"Was worth a try." Grimmjow shrugged shamelessly. "Probably would have worked if I had a human form."

All three brats blinked thoughtfully before looking at Grimmjow with various expressions of disbelief. The boys' expressions were easy to translate.

"You brats just pictured me as that white-haired pervert, didn't you?"

Fox-brat shook his head in denial. "No way!"

Grimmjow twitched in annoyance. "I really should have killed you when I had the chance."

"All right, he's already got a proximity seal on him, the one that makes him have to stay within five feet of you Uchiha. And there's the paralysing and knock-out one I control..."

Not for the first time, Grimmjow cursed Aizen for making him end up in this place.

-x-x-x-x-x-

Grimmjow grimaced at the continuous dull throb on various locations of his armour. Locations for the new seals on him.

Seals he had fought so hard not to get.

But no matter how hard he tired, Tsunade had knocked him out via the seal that had already been on his neck. When he'd woken up, the three brats looked at him guiltily as they rubbed their marked arms. Pink-hair even sniffled and apologized like a moron.

Grimmjow snorted and dug his claws in to the ground underneath him.

Six seals.

Six seals left him under the complete control of three brats. Each of them controlled two seals, but he had no idea who controlled what. He didn't even know what half the seals on his body did.

Grimmjow looked up as a loud chirping sound filled the air. He coated his claws with spiritual energy and made deep gouges on the ground just as Bratty-black destroyed the rock he'd been aiming at.

The only thing he did know was if he tried to attack any of the brats, a seventh seal automatically activated and paralysed him. The brats had looked annoyingly guilty over that too, instead of being afraid that he'd tried to attack.

The chirping sound appeared again and another rock exploded.

"You don't have to be here, you know," Bratty-black said after a moment of silence. "Even though I can't remove this proximity seal yet, I've changed the distance. You're free to roam further away from me."

Grimmjow snorted. "You're talkative. Is that because you know I can't attack you now?"

Bratty-black sighed and activated his electrical technique again. More chirping and another rock exploded.

"We won't ever activate any of those seals."

Grimmjow closed his eyes, hating the sincerity in those words more than the seals themselves. "I know."

The chirping sound filled his ears once again. This time when the rock exploded, Bratty-black said, "That stupid pervert was right after all."

Grimmjow snorted in amusement at the boy's noticeable disbelief and subsequent groan.

"That means I really have to meditate."

And that was the last thing he said for hours until Grimmjow stood, sniffed noisily and said out loud, "So, Orochimaru finally sent some pawns to kill you, brat! Good, I thought I'd die of boredom here."

Bratty-black dropped out of his meditative pose and stood in a defensive stance as four purple clad people dropped down on to the ground. He pulled out a weapon and said, "Orochimaru, huh?"

"Four people!" Grimmjow grinned. "He must really want you dead after not being able to kill either of you brats that day."

Bratty-black tsk-ed in annoyance.

"We are the Sound..."

Grimmjow roared at the multi-armed speaker. "Don't care. Just die."

The four moved in different directions, two moving to the brat and two darting at Grimmjow.

Grimmjow sonido-ed behind the largest one and swiped his spiritual energy coated claws across the boy's back. Bone and muscle gave way easily under his now bloodied claws even as the acrid smell of burnt skin filled the air. He ignored it and sonido-ed to his other attacker, a red-haired girl. He bit down on her shoulder and didn't stop until he heard bone snap.

The he sonido-ed to a relatively free spot next to Bratty-black. "I went easy on you because I thought I'd get a long fight." He huffed and looked at his bleeding opponents. "Obviously I expected too much."

Bratty-black snorted and threw off some white web like substance from his arm.

The four intruders stirred and stood up, ignoring their debilitating injuries.

Grimmjow chuckled as he felt their energies stir. "So there's still some fight left in you. Good."

"Uchiha Sasuke, just how long are you going to keep playing in this village?" The multi-armed person said. "You'll never become strong, not like us, who've obtained true power from Orochimaru-sama."

"Ah! So that is what real human delusion looks like," Grimmjow said, miffed that they'd just ignored him.

The four intruders' anger became slightly more visible. They didn't seem bothered by their injuries as black marks crawled across their faces.

Grimmjow barred his teeth and flared his own spiritual energy in response, making sure to make his power very noticeable. Blue energy swirled violently around Grimmjow, the ground around his feet cracked and Bratty-black winced in surprise.

"Shit! That's probably some sort of signal to bring others here."

The four people glared and even though it looked like they wanted to fight, they shot up in to the air and left.

Grimmjow immediately pulled back and hid his spiritual energy.

"Why'd you let them go?" Bratty-black said as he took a deep breath.

Grimmjow stared at Bratty-black. "They'll head back to Orochimaru."

"You want to follow them to him?"

"You have a problem with that?" Grimmjow hissed in irritation.

Bratty-black glanced down pointedly at the circular design on his arm. "I'm going too."

"Fuck!" Grimmjow said as he eyed the seal in disgust, the seal that he'd forgotten about in the bliss of his plan. "Fine, I put my energy in two of them. They'll be easy to track."

Bratty-black looked up at the full moon. "Then, shouldn't we wait until it isn't so bright?"


	9. Unlucky Distraction

"Finally!" Grimmjow said as he stood up and stretched.

Bratty-black looked up from his scroll. "They're moving?"

Grimmjow growled. "Those bastards better be heading back to Orochimaru or I'll kill them."

Bratty-black shot him a look.

"I'll torture them for Orochimaru's location and then I'll kill them," Grimmjow amended.

"You should have done that before," the boy grumbled.

Grimmjow snorted. "Who knew they'd be so fixated on getting to you. Orochimaru really hates you, huh?"

Bratty-black rubbed his neck with an irritated expression, attached a large metal weapon to his back and opened the window. "The feeling is mutual."

They both jumped out the window and followed a pre-planned route, the emptiest route in the village, that would take them to the main gate and out of the village covertly.

Grimmjow used his pesquisa constantly in short bursts ensuring that their route was clear from people who'd delay their exit from the village. Conveniently, he didn't need his pesquisa to keep track of Orochimaru's minions. The spiritual energy he'd injected into two of them, during their first encounter, somehow flared like a beacon to him. He could pinpoint where they were in relation to him without even trying.

As the large village gates came in to sight, Grimmjow said, "Going through these gates is not sneaky."

The boy sighed in annoyance. "At night, the barrier around the village only notices people who try to sneak in to the village."

"That's stupid," Grimmjow said as he walked through the small door in the corner of the large red closed gates. "No guards. No sense of self-preservation at all."

"Do you want to get stopped?" Bratty-black said, sounding irritated.

Grimmjow still didn't understand how leaving through the gates normally wouldn't alert anyone, but the brat seemed confident so he ignored it, not wanting to waste time in his pursuit of Orochimaru's minions. He knew that people would eventually notice their absence from the village, no matter what Bratty-black said. So he had to hurry before people came to drag them back to the village.

"Slow down!" Bratty-black said and easily kept pace with Grimmjow. "If they know they're being followed, they'll lead us in another direction."

Grimmjow hated the logic in the boy's words but slowed, keeping a constant track on the spiritual energy that he'd injected in to those two minions. "They're heading East of us."

The boy beside him pulled out a map and somehow consulted it in the scarce light for a few seconds. He pulled out two small pellets, swallowed one with a wince and held the other out to Grimmjow. "It's an experimental thing that erases your scent."

Grimmjow growled in annoyance but swallowed the pellet, hating the disgusting after-taste it left in his mouth.

Bratty-black looked at the map one more time before he moved forward.

"Are you retarded?" Grimmjow said, "I said east."

Bratty-black made an impatient sound. "Ninja leave traps behind to deal with pursuers who follow their route directly."

Grimmjow huffed to himself at another bout of sensible logic from the boy, wondering if he should be relieved or annoyed. He decided to stick with annoyed because of the boy's smug and patronizing words. "Why do we have to be so ridiculously far from them?"

"Is it hard for you to track those two?"

"Obviously not," Grimmjow said, his irritation growing considerably.

"Then we're keeping this distance until they finally stop."

"I never thought you'd be one for stealth," Grimmjow said, trying to goad the boy in to changing his plan. A plan which Grimmjow had to follow because of the proximity seal that forced him to stick close to Bratty-black.

The brat shrugged. "There's a time and place for everything."

As they continued their slow trip through the thick trees, the dark sky above them lightened as the sun rose. Grimmjow growled at the slow pace of his targets and struggled to keep his annoyance to himself especially since the brat beside him seemed perfectly fine with the situation.

A seal on Grimmjow's back tingled slightly.

"Oi, is one of the seals on me some sort of tracker?"

Bratty-black nodded.

"You..."

"Orochimaru won't be alone," Bratty-black said. "Do you want to waste time getting to him?"

"Fuck!" Grimmjow ran forward and used a long range pesquisa to find out just what was going on. "Those two brats are coming with four other people."

"Four others?" Bratty-black said in surprise. "They probably thought I was kidnapped."

"Don't be retarded." Grimmjow said, "Who'd be stupid enough to try kidnapping you when I'm stuck with you because of this shitty seal."

The brat shot him an odd look.

Grimmjow concentrated on his pesquisa once again. "They're headed east." Grimmjow growled to the brat beside him. "Your shitty plan is going to make me lose my leads."

Bratty-black rolled his eyes. "These are just complications."

"Complications? They're obviously searching for you. And they're following those four instead. You're absolute shit at planning things."

"You're shittier at it." Bratty-black scoffed angrily."You wanted to go after them the day they attacked."

"At least I had a plan to find Orochimaru," Grimmjow said as they changed directions towards everyone else. "Looks like those four already realized they're being followed even though they're so far ahead."

The brat didn't speak but his expression betrayed his irritation at the complete failure of his plan.

"They're not moving forward," Grimmjow concentrated on his errant spiritual energy. He switched to using his pesquisa to figure out what was going on. "They're waiting for the others." His pesquisa registered an unknown spiritual signature. "There's someone else coming from the direction those four were headed to."

"You don't actually think that the person is coming from Orochimaru." Bratty-black said, "It probably just a coincidence."

"I don't believe in anything like that." Grimmjow frowned for a moment as he remembered the seal that connected him to Bratty-black. Sonido-ing ahead would be impossible because he had to keep a constant distance with the brat. He grimaced but flicked his tail to the side, wrapped it around the boy's wrist and sonido-ed mid-leap.

Grimmjow pinpointed the location of his new target every few minutes with his pesquisa, passing the two spots of his spiritual energy easily, and stopped in a fairly open clearing much further away from his previous targets.

"I increased the seal's distance," the boy said between deep gasps of air and he slumped to the ground.

Grimmjow uncoiled his tail from the boy's wrist. "We're hundreds of feet away from where we were a minute ago."

As one of the spots of his errant spiritual energy moved, signifying that his previous targets were splitting up, Grimmjow readied himself. The trees in front of his rustled and his pesquisa assured him that he'd have company in a matter of minutes.

"They're splitting up and fighting those four," Grimmjow said absently.

"What?"

"Are you worried?" Grimmjow mocked.

Bratty-black tch-ed in annoyance.

Grimmjow readied his spiritual energy.

The tree rustled slightly and a white-haired boy clad in purple landed silently in their clearing. Grimmjow frowned at the shroud of spiritual energy surrounding the boy.

The boy blinked slowly, looked at Grimmjow for a moment before he concentrated on Bratty-black and rasped out, "Sasuke-kun."

"What's a dying shit like you doing so far from your grave?" Grimmjow said in annoyance.

The boy blinked again, seemingly surprised at Grimmjow's words."I'm here to take Sasuke-kun to Orochimaru-sama."

Bratty-black snarled and shifted into a fighting stance.

"So you're one of Orochimaru's people too. Good, that makes things so much easier now." Grimmjow felt his mood improve and pulled his spiritual energy, ready to extract the information he wanted from the boy.

"You're Orochimaru-sama's precious future body," the white-haired boy said confidently.

Grimmjow actually paused, stopping his attack and froze in his position. "What?"

Thankfully the white-haired boy wasn't looking at him. He was looking beyond him to Bratty-black.

"So," Grimmjow said as he processed the white-haired boy's revelations and turned to the brat. "You're Orochimaru's bastard kid? You're spiritual energies aren't similar but I guess humans are different..."

Bratty-black said, "There's no way I'm related to him."

"You heard him," Grimmjow suppressed a laugh. "You're Orochimaru's precious future."

"Don't make up your own explanations!"

Grimmjow turned back to the white-haired boy. "Oi, where's Orochimaru? I'm all for reuniting family and shit."

"You're willing to go to Orochimaru-sama?"

"Completely." Grimmjow stifled another laugh. "So willing that I've been waiting for over a week to reach him. Those four bums weren't willing to... help us."

"What about you, Sasuke-kun?"

"Like hell I'd..." The brat glared.

Grimmjow flicked a tail at the brat making sure to hit exposed skin. "Sasuke's obviously coming too." Grimmjow turned to the brat. "Isn't that right?"

Bratty-black, or rather Sasuke, glared at him moodily but nodded.

The boy stared between the both of them, searching for something then said, "Then I, Kimimaro, will deliver you to Orochimaru-sama. Since the sound four failed to enhance your curse seal, Kabuto will have some extra work."

"Right," Grimmjow wondered if this was a good idea. Non-violence always seemed like a bad idea. That's what had gotten him stuck with the brats in the first place.

"I'll get rid of the useless trash who couldn't do their job for Orochimaru-sama later." The boy's green eyes narrowed. "How dare they go against Orochimaru-sama's orders?"

Grimmjow snorted. "Shit, you're like a real human Ulquiorra."

The white-haired boy tilted his head to the side. "I did not know that Sasuke-kun would be accompanied by a companion."

Grimmjow flicked his tail in amusement, wondering just how much he could mess with the boy. "I'm eager to meet Kabuto again. Me and him go way back."

"I see."

Grimmjow grinned as he imagined the boy's reaction when Grimmjow killed Orochimaru in front of him. "How can you move so easily when you're already half-dead?"

"Orochimaru-sama's power strengthens me to accomplish anything."

"I see," Grimmjow retorted, hiding Sasuke's mocking snort easily. He groaned when a seal on his back tingled again. "So, how about we speed this trip up. We shouldn't keep that fuc... Orochimaru waiting."

"Yes, you're right," the boy said and picked up speed.

The seal on Grimmjow back flared uncomfortably again and he caught of whiff of familiar scents. Even without his pesquisa he knew their followers were catching up with them.

Their white-haired paused and turned. "You two should go ahead to the Valley of the End. Kabuto-san will be waiting further away in that direction. I will take care of these insolent trash." Without waiting for a response he leapt away from them and headed back in the direction they had come from.

Grimmjow recognized Fox-brat's energy and said, "You do that."

"Don't even think about it." Sasuke pulled his hand away and shoved in his his pockets when Grimmjow turned to him.

"But you're slow. Fuck, it'll take forever to reach the place." Grimmjow frowned as he noticed the expression on the brat's face. "You want to fight that white-haired guy?"

"Keeping his alive is a liability," Sasuke said.

"He's dying," Grimmjow said. "Since his soul is already half-out of his body, he probably has less than two hours to live."

"What?"

Grimmjow wrapped his tail around the surprised boy's ankle.

"No, wait! The..."

Grimmjow just sonido-ed ahead. But no matter how far he went, he never left the forest cover. He stopped for a moment and decided to use his pesquisa to gain his bearings.

"You went in the wrong direction," Sasuke yelled after taking a deep breath.

"Why didn't you tell me that before?" Grimmjow tsk-ed in annoyance. "So which way then, Sasuke?"

"You think using my name is going to make me help you all the time?"

Grimmjow just looked at him blandly, pointedly making a show of waiting for an answer.

Sasuke glared but pointed the direction.

Grimmjow tightened his tail around the boy's ankle and sonido-ed in the pointed direction, but had to stop frequently to check if he was going in the correct direction. When Grimmjow finally stopped by a gushing river, he grimaced at the lost time after noticing the afternoon sunlight. Grimmjow eyed the large statues that framed the waterfall as he sniffed around the bank carefully. "That Kabuto's trail clearly leads to the other side of this water."

"This is such an obvious trap."

"Like I care," Grimmjow said as he felt one spot of his spiritual energy disappear. Spurred on by the obvious death of one of Orochimaru's minions, Grimmjow said, "I intend to eat Orochimaru's soul today, no matter what."

"Don't! I can..."

Grimmjow landed on the other side of the water with a thump. The brat cursed again as he steadied himself.

"Stop pulling me around."

"Stop being so slow," Grimmjow retorted easily.

He tilted his head a little to the side, feeling like he was being watched and used his pesquisa. When he got the information back, and even though he didn't recognize the hidden spiritual energy in the ground, he shot a cero at the base of the large tree.

The brat behind him exclaimed in surprise.

"So much of your spiritual energy spread out in the ground." Grimmjow growled. "Trying to escape after hiding from me, shit-head?"

Even as the smoke and rubble cleared, Grimmjow shot a barrage of ceros in a circular pattern at the ground, confusing his target for a split second.

"Hey, you can't run away," Grimmjow said as he pinpointed his target's location and landed beside it with a burst of sonido. "That's not nice, especially when you disturbed my hunt." Grimmjow wrapped his tail around his target's body, sonido-ed back to the river and landed on the water's surface.

Grimmjow spread his spiritual energy on the surface of the water and said, "You can't escape now. Not when it's my energy that's at your feet."

His captive cursed.

Grimmjow noticed the captive's outfit. "Oh? Black coat with red clouds... you're that Itachi and Fish-face's companion. Today must be my lucky day." He stared at the spiked plant-like protrusions that surrounded a human-looking black and white face and realized that he couldn't find any trace of a human soul.

Finally the plant-like creature, because there was no way it was an actual human, spoke in a rough guttural voice. "How did you find me?"

Grimmjow replied with, "Are you working for Orochimaru?"

"Who'd work for him?"

"But you obviously know fish-face and Itachi, right?" Grimmjow flicked his tail through the air, keeping watch of the creature's spiritual energy.

The creature didn't reply.

He didn't really have to. The outfit was enough of a confirmation for Grimmjow. Grimmjow slashed his claws, allowing thin lines of spiritual energy to cut through the air as they raced towards the creature.

Grimmjow sonido-ed to the creature's side, blasted a cero point blank at it's side making sure that his hit would push the creature further away from land.

Cloth sizzled, chunks of flesh exploded and the creature landed a few feet away on the water. Grimmjow watched as the creature's body regenerated the chunk of flesh he'd destroyed with his cero.

"Grimmjow, what..."

"Sasuke, Grimmjow! Sakura-chan is mad at you both and..." A loud horrified gasp. "That outfit!"

Two voices yelled from both sides of the river simultaneously.

The creature looked away from Grimmjow for a moment. "The Jinchuuriki?"

Grimmjow pounced and blasted another cero at the creature's chest.

It ducked a little to the side but flesh still exploded through it's back. Grimmjow noticed the lack of red blood just as the creature kicked him back and attempted to jump to the river bank.

"Don't interfere!" Grimmjow yelled even as he sonido-ed in front of the rapidly healing creature and threw it back to the center of the river, stopping it's escape attempt yet again. "Shitty defense and healing... can't you at least attack?"

Grimmjow flexed his body for a jump, but his limbs froze as a thick white mass bubbled in to existence around him and froze his movements while simultaneously disturbing his spiritual energy.

"You don't have any chakra to drain." His opponent frowned, his voice sounding completely different from before, even as he moved away. Softer and more calm. "You're only using spiritual energy."

"So that's what these things were trying to do." Grimmjow shifted and numerous spikes, usually hidden in his body armour, emerged with a burst of spiritual energy that easily cut off all the white mass hindering him. "You're annoying." He shot another cero.

Once more the cero ripped through the body, this time leaving a huge hollow-like hole. The plant-creature gurgled oddly for a second, before it fell face-forward staying on top of the water because of the spiritual energy that Grimmjow had spread out before.

Grimmjow stared at the unmoving body. He felt victorious when the hole he'd blasted didn't close up at all. "Third time's the charm."

"Grimmjow," The brats' teacher jumped on to the water surface and grabbed the black clothed body. "You did good, but I'll take this now, okay?"

Grimmjow let him, wondering just when he'd joined them. He had no use for a dead body of something that didn't even give a soul for him to eat. Grimmjow jumped on to the solid land, confident and eager to chase after Orochimaru again.

Horrified yelps of surprise stopped him.

"Naruto! Sasuke!" The brats' teacher yelled.

Grimmjow turned and saw the brats trapped by a large glowing white mass. Grimmjow growled and sonido-ed to the dead body, that had been laid on the ground, but it was too late.

An explosion of smoke and gas erupted around the seemingly dead body.

Grimmjow strengthened his jaws with spiritual energy mid-sonido, grabbed hold of something fleshy and pulled viciously. Amidst the sounds of tearing flesh and cursing, Grimmjow jumped up into the air and hovered there.

When the smoke finally cleared, Grimmjow opened his jaws and threw whatever he was holding at the brats' teacher.

The man caught hold of a long white arm, complete with deep bite marks, with a grim look even as Grimmjow stretched out his senses.

"He's gone," Grimmjow said, unable to detect the hidden presence anywhere close.

The brat's teacher said, "You're sure?"

Grimmjow shot the man a patronizing look and landed on the ground with an embarrassing and angry realization. "He didn't have a soul." Grimmjow snarled. "He managed to fool me because he didn't have a soul."

The man looked ready to ask more questions, but they were interrupted by a loud explosion in the distance beyond the river.

"Wasn't Orochimaru supposed to be in that direction?" Sasuke said as he eyed the plume of black smoke rising in the distance.

The brats' teacher sighed. "He probably destroyed his current hideout and left, removing any trails to him."

"Damn those red cloud wearing shit-heads. It's not enough that they gave that Jiraiya a chance to put shitty seals on me. Now they're disturbed my hunt for Orochimaru," Grimmjow snarled. "I'll make them pay."

"Everything is always about you, isn't it, Grimmjow?" the man said as he somehow placed the white arm in a paper scroll. "We better head back."

"Like hell I'm going back now," Grimmjow said and moved away from the group. He barely made it five feet before his body stopped moving. He unwillingly felt betrayed. "You reduced the seal's distance!"

"No," Sasuke said immediately. "The seal parameters revert automatically when my chakra..."

-x-x-x-x-x-

Sasuke looked unusually solemn as he completed his entire explanation and finally said, "My initial plan failed but you have to admit our final find was well-worth it."

The Hokage stared down at him with angry eyes. "Your plan left three genin in critical condition because you chose to go off on your own without informing anyone."

Sasuke seemed content to force his anger down and stay silent.

Grimmjow glared. "If they wanted to stay uninjured then they should have just hidden here."

The still-injured and obviously weakened brats had the audacity to try and make him stop talking.

But the blonde lady just rubbed her forehead in irritation. "Just tell me about the Akatsuki member you encountered."

Grimmjow stared at her dully.

"If you're unwilling to share information, I'll happily confine you to the village with some seals." She narrowed her eyes.

Grimmjow didn't feel the slightest bit intimidated by her threats.

And it must have shown.

Sakura spoke up. "Hokage-sama, Grimmjow is more comfortable talking to the members of Team seven only. We can give you his information later, right?"

The blonde woman knew it was utter rubbish but she nodded anyway. "You have by the end of the day to hand me the information. And Uchiha, you'll be handed your punishment later."

Grimmjow turned away and stayed silent during their entire trip to Sasuke's home. The minute he knew that they were completely alone, with a convenient check of his pesquisa, Grimmjow turned to the orange-clad brat. "Why are they after you?"

"What? Who? They're not..."

Grimmjow snorted at the bad attempt at denial. "That plant-freak looked right at you and called you a Jinchuuriki."

"I..." he said softly. "really don't know what you're talking about."

"You have another powerful source of energy in you," Grimmjow said and leaned forward sounding just a tiny bit crazy. "It's what made me want to eat you the first time, Naruto." He hid his amusement at the boy's reaction to being called by name. He'd purposely kept from saying their real names up till this, just for this.

Their shock and happiness of being referred to by name after so long, would make them even more eager to help him.

At least, Grimmjow hoped it did. "But later I realized that energy was corrosive. There was something almost demonic about it..."

The other two brats seemed stunned by their conversation but didn't interrupt.

"That's what they want, right?" Grimmjow said.

Naruto didn't answer.

"Either way, this is perfect!" Grimmjow paced around the three brats.

"It is?"

Grimmjow snorted. "Of course, I don't even have to search for strong prey. You two are perfect bait for all sorts of people I can kill. It makes being stuck with you morons with these seals a bit more bearable."

The awkwardness disappeared and the boys shared a look that Grimmjow couldn't quite decipher.

Grimmjow turned to the third brat. "Why doesn't anyone want to kill you?"

Sakura shot him a dull look. "I'm sure you have a ton of reasons for that already. More importantly, are you going to tell us about that person you fought? We can't keep Hokage-sama waiting."

"Don't be naive." Grimmjow flicked his tail through the air. "I've finally figured out how this place works. Information is power, so you're not going to give away the information about that plant-guy for free."

"What are you talking about, Grimmjow?" Naruto asked.

"Retards!" Grimmjow remembered the seals on him and stifled his urge to attack the three of them, managing only to growl at them. "We're going to get proper payment for this information."

"But..." Sakura said hesitantly.

"Tell them you want information on Orochimaru in return for this."

All three brats seemed genuinely shocked at the idea.

"That's actually," Naruto said. "a good idea."

Sasuke nodded.

"But how can we do that?" Sakura asked. "They won't just listen to our demands."

Grimmjow snorted. "That's your problem. Now listen up, because I'm only going to talk about that plant-freak once..."

-x-x-x-x-x-

Grimmjow stood by the gate, watching the people around him with unconcealed distaste. As the three brats chatted away softly, Grimmjow said, "I can't believe you used my hard-earned information to get new teachers."

"For the last time," Sakura said. "That's not all we got. You're conveniently forgetting about..."

"And even worse, I have to share this brat's punishment too." Grimmjow flicked his tail at Sasuke.

Sasuke just sighed. "Our punishment could have been a lot worse then living with Kakashi."

"There's nothing worse!"

Naruto interrupted them. "Talking about such gloomy things when I'm leaving... you guys are really going to miss me a lot, huh?"

Everyone stayed silent.

Naruto stared at all three of them. "What's with those unimpressed looks? Grimmjow? Even you, Sakura-chan?"

No one said anything.

"You're all terrible," Naruto said, turned away with a huff and rushed to Jiraiya who'd been patiently waiting by the gates.

As they walked out of the gates the two brats yelled.

"Get stronger, idiot."

"Stay out of trouble, Naruto!"

"Tell him not to die," Grimmjow said.

The brats turned to him with a surprised look.

"He has three strong people after him!"

Their surprise turned to exasperation.

"Naruto!" Sakura yelled loudly. "Grimmjow says to come back soon."

"That's not what I said!" Grimmjow growled as a loud laugh faded in the distance.


	10. Interesting Reunion

"Patrol is getting boring," Grimmjow said absently as he ran forward.

"You killed five foreign ninja an hour ago!"

Grimmjow sniffed in disdain. "It's not like they were a challenge."

Sasuke twitched. "Three of them were Jounin."

"Your teacher is stronger than all of them combined."

"And yet you got injured."

Grimmjow scoffed and looked at his healed hind-leg which still had traces of scorch marks. "That made things interesting for a while."

Sasuke rolled his eyes.

"You were slow," Grimmjow said haughtily, somewhat in a good mood after eating more than five souls. His body armour felt a tiny bit heavier, a clear sign that he'd finally evolved slightly.

Grimmjow groaned as a seal on his back tingled.

"Sasuke!"

The brat next to him sighed. "Sakura, aren't you supposed to be training in Konoha?"

"Both my teachers are busy. So with Tsunade-sama's approval, I've come here to help you patrol."

"I don't need help," Sasuke said.

"What's with that tone?" Sakura narrowed his eyes at them. "You two killed some more people, didn't you?"

"It's patrol duty." Sasuke scoffed. "We're supposed to kill intruders."

"Tsunade-sama is going to be pissed that you two killed everyone again."

"I got all the useful information." Sasuke pointed to his eyes.

Sakura huffed. "She'll be even more pissed with that."

"She's the one that keeps sending us out."

"And who conned her in to giving you two this job in the first place?" Sakura said blandly.

"Then nag him instead of me."

The brats turned to him, but Grimmjow sonido-ed past them until he reached a clearing and bit one of his new targets. Necrotic skinned humans whose spiritual energy reeked with disgusting familiarity.

When he reached to kill a fourth human, the brats finally reached the clearing.

Sakura yelped. "Those marks... what are Orochimaru's people doing here?"

"Looks like their seals have gone berserk." Sasuke huffed. "Just kill them."

Grimmjow immersed himself in the haze of physical battle. He clawed, bit and ripped apart as many bodies as he could not willing to waste his spiritual energy for such boring opponents.

But he stayed away from the souls that emerged from the dead bodies.

The disfigured souls, who never spoke, were covered in some sort of pulsating spiritual rot. When he'd swallowed one such soul months ago, it wreaked havoc on his spiritual power.

"Shannaro!" Sakura yelled.

Grimmjow turned as the ground beneath him shook. As the ground exploded in a shower of dirt and rock, two of Orochimaru's freaks jumped up in to the air only to be surrounded by a cloud of pink flower petals.

In the next second, the petals exploded in a flash of heat, fire and smoke.

Sakura jumped through the smoke with a large pink weapon and landed in a smooth crouch while two beheaded bodies fell to the ground behind her with meaty thuds.

Grimmjow looked around for more people to kill.

But Sasuke held the only living person left. A battered body that whispered even as it dripped copious amounts of blood. Sasuke's red eyes glimmered as he questioned the victim right until he stabbed the body through the heart with his sword.

When Sasuke piled the dead bodies and burnt them with one of his fire techniques, Grimmjow watched the twisted souls scream and vanish just as ash and the acrid smell of burnt flesh filled the air.

"They," Sasuke opened a map as the fire died down and said, "came from another one of Orochimaru's newer bases. It's located here." He pointed a spot to Grimmjow. "Closer than the last one at least but we need to wait till it's dark to get there without anyone knowing."

"Orochimaru's there?"

"He said he only saw Kabuto two days ago," Sasuke said.

Grimmjow snorted. "Then going there is useless. That fucker disappears every time."

"There's apparently two levels full of other experiments."

"A consolation prize?" Grimmjow chuckled. "Well, it's always fun to destroy that fucker's work. He might even get pissed enough to personally come visit."

"What are you two talking about?" Sakura glared at them angrily. "Are you actually planning to go to Orochimaru's base without reporting to Tsunade-sama?"

Grimmjow growled, having forgotten that she'd been there and listening. "Why do we need to tell that hag anything?"

"And don't you have to be back in Konoha tomorrow afternoon when your patrol shift ends?" Sakura said, "Going that close to rice country would take at least two days."

Sasuke shrugged and Grimmjow snorted.

"What's that... You two have done this before!" Sakura glared at both of them. "Then, there's no way you're leaving me behind. I'm coming with you."

Grimmjow huffed. "Not if you tattle to that hag."

Sakura scoffed. "I will, if you leave me behind."

"Can you move with that two of us?" Sasuke asked.

Grimmjow didn't really care if he could actually sonido with two deadweight humans. "Obviously."

"Then, we'll go after I meet up with the patrol party from from the south-east."

Sakura snorted. "They're you alibi of being at work here?"

"So, a ridiculous double sword staff was your mystery weapon?" Sasuke changed the topic tactlessly enough to make Grimmjow pay attention.

"Ridiculous?" Sakura narrowed her eyes.

"It looks difficult to handle," Sasuke said. "I'm surprised that Hayate allowed it as your main weapon."

Sakura glared at him. "He's an actual swordsman and he thinks I can handle it just fine after two years of training with him."

"Those blade shapes aren't practical." Sasuke scoffed.

Grimmjow examined the pink coloured sword-blades on each end of the staff. While they were thin close to the hilt, the blades widened considerably into a wide end almost like the base of a tree. But more interestingly, instead of a smooth edge, the blade had numerous inwardly curved points.

"But it's pink," Sakura said and pointed to a few brown markings on the blade. "And I got custom seals for my explosives on it."

Grimmjow snorted, recognizing the voice of someone completely enamoured with their weapon.

"That doesn't make anything better," Sasuke said.

"Why don't I cut you down with it and show you just how deadly it is? Even my incomplete combo will be enough for you, arrogant ass."

Grimmjow stared between both of them, hoping that the two of them would finally crack and kill each other in a shower of blood and gore.

"Grimmjow, you should probably stay with me," Sakura said in a annoyingly cheerful voice. "The ass over there probably occupies too much space with his oversized ego."

Grimmjow sighed. There was no chance they'd fight now. "Fuck no, your place smells nauseating."

"It does not. You're just making that up!" Sakura said in annoyance. "Oh! I get it. You're just staying with him because Orochimaru keeps sending people after him."

"Are you saying I shouldn't be rewarded for living with the Princess?"

Sasuke twitched and Sakura grinned.

"Princess? Well, when you put it like that," Sakura held her weapon out to Sasuke. "Sasuke-hime, if you were just jealous because you wanted my _pink_ weapon, all you had to do was ask." She grinned and batted away the weapons thrown at her.

"No one took you seriously with that pink hair. A pink double sword staff just makes things worse."

"At least, I've got style. My pink hair and..."

"I knew someone with pink hair before," Grimmjow said as he raked his claws across the ground, watching the dirt rise up alongside a cloud of dust. He looked up. "He was weak."

Sakura twitched.

"But crazy as fuck. He was probably the most dangerous person you could meet."

Sakura blinked and laughed.

"He laughed like that too," Grimmjow said as he walked forward. "Crazy fucker."

-x-x-x-x-x-

Three days later, Grimmjow shoved past the slightly open balcony door, jumped down in to the street and walked through the village. With a few turns down secluded roads and a little sonido, Grimmjow landed in an all too familiar forest.

He kept his pesquisa active as he picked his way through the thick vegetation noisily. Even when he registered two blips of human spiritual energy, Grimmjow walked slowly and picked a fight with a large tiger.

The spiritual energies moved closer as he drew out the physical fight and growled louder than usual. As soon as Grimmjow killed the tiger, something crashed down a few feet away from him.

Grimmjow eyed the battered human that had been thrown. He moved closer and examined the dark bruises, long jagged cuts, the empty eye sockets and even the missing tongue, but more importantly he noticed the glowing shroud of spiritual energy around the body.

Grimmjow pounced on the dying human and bit down on exposed flesh. The body shuddered pathetically, unable to scream, as blood filled Grimmjow's mouth. Grimmjow looked up and barred his bloody teeth at the masked figure in the tree-tops.

"There's a group hiding close to rice country." Grimmjow dragged his claws across the battered body underneath his paws. "They're stockpiling weapons."

The masked figure tilted his head to the side but made no move to get closer to Grimmjow.

Grimmjow chuckled. He'd had to kill three masked figures before they learnt to stop trying to attack him. He turned back to the tortured body and ripped out the throat. He bit hard, ensuring that the loud sounds filled the air as the human died.

The masked figure sighed and vanished.

Grimmjow waited until his pesquisa registered no living human close before he hastily spit out the crushed mixture of bone and bloody flesh. He spread of a thin net of spiritual energy and hissed at the soul that hovered close. "What did they want from you?"

"I'm dead," the soul said.

Grimmjow repeated impatiently. "What did they want from you?"

"How can you see me if I'm dead?"

"I take care of dead souls," Grimmjow said easily and made a show of cleaning off the blood from his mouth.

"But you killed me."

"You were already dying," Grimmjow said smoothly. "If I left your soul in that body, it would have been damaged."

"I see." The man calmed down with the matter-of-fact tone, just like Grimmjow knew he would.

After all, he'd perfected how to deal with this kind of situation for the past two years.

"But I need to know why they did that." Grimmjow shot the tortured dead body a look. "As a soul, you're freed from any seal they put on your human body. Of course, your final destination depends on your level of honesty."

The soul hesitated but when he looked back at his dead body, he grew angry and determined. And within a minute, he spilt everything.

He talked about his village and a deity-like leader for a while before finally talking about something that Grimmjow actually found useful.

Danzo.

The shadowy figure who'd started sending Grimmjow dying humans in exchange for any information. A figure that Grimmjow had never met personally and one he'd never been able to get any information about until now. "You met him?"

The soul laughed. "He wanted to know about my village. He grew desperate when I couldn't give him anything and actually came and had to use his eye."

"His eye?"

"But his eye couldn't help him at all." He laughed even louder, sounding just a bit hysterical. "Stupid Konoha bastard. He thought that the Sharingan eye would give him what he wanted. Fool."

"Oh?" Grimmjow smirked, already wondering how he'd use the information for maximum profit. He waited until the man became silent before he pulled on the spiritual energy he'd released earlier.

"What are you doing?" The man said apprehensively.

"Rewarding you for the information," Grimmjow said, pulled the soul and swallowed it before the man could react. "What's better than becoming my power, anyway?"

Grimmjow turned back to the body and incinerated it with a slightly different cero till only a patch of dark red remained on the ground.

-x-x-x-x-x-

"Tsunade-sama said that they'd probably be back by the end of the week," Sakura said as she kicked away her opponent. "But she kept saying that Jiraiya would probably get delayed because of his habits, whatever that means."

Sasuke grunted as his opponent fell with a cackle of electricity.

"You're still sticking with the bet, right?" Sakura asked as she punched the ground, separating the rest of the enemy in to smaller groups.

"I'll win," Sasuke said.

Grimmjow wondered what bet they were talking about even as he killed a large opponent. He ignored the damaged soul, sniffed the air cautiously and growled. "Have you gotten so weak travelling with that useless person, that you can't even fight now?"

A familiar obnoxious laugh filled the clearing. "So, you missed me!"

"Naruto, you're back early!" Sakura yelled happily. "You're just in time for Orochimaru's weekly kidnapping attempt of the Princess."

"This doesn't happen every week," Sasuke said and stabbed one of the animalistic opponents. "And stop calling me Princess."

"Shut up, morons." Grimmjow yelled back as he pounced on ripped his next opponent's hand off easily.

In a matter of minutes, all of Orochimaru's minions were killed and burnt in to ashes. Sasuke shrugged and said, "this group's memories were wiped clean too. Nothing new."

Grimmjow growled in annoyance at the lack of new information as the three brats whispered to each other.

"If there's nothing to do, then we should have a party," Naruto finally said out loud.

"That's a great idea." Sakura said. "I know a place where can get the booze from in no time."

Sasuke grimaced.

"Is there a problem, Sasuke-kun? Aren't you going to contribute to our planning?"

Grimmjow laughed at the discomfort on the boy's face. Sasuke glared at him but said, "You guys could come over to my place."

"Excellent!"

Naruto looked between the both of them with narrowed eyes. "You two seem to have gotten closer."

Grimmjow howled with laughter when Sasuke looked irritated.

"Oh! Grimmjow, look at this." Naruto pulled out a glossy paper, turned it around and pointed at the large lounging cat in it. "This is a giant leopard from Snow country. It's got completely white fur and golden eyes. Isn't it beautiful?

Grimmjow stared at the boy's face dully.

Naruto blinked. "It's not?"

"What the fuck are you trying to do?"

"That," Naruto looked at the other two for a moment. "Don't you want to meet another cat for you know..."

"What?" Grimmjow turned when Sakura snorted and hid her face. Sasuke looked away from Grimmjow with an unreadable expression.

"Well, you're a rare cat. It'd be cool to have tons of nicer little Grimmjows running around..."

The last thing Grimmjow heard before he jumped at Naruto with outstretched claws and got knocked out by the seal was, "Pay up, Sasuke-hime."

Hours later when they finally reached Sasuke's place, after a slight detour to a bar for Sakura's shopping, all three brats had three cases of sake each.

"Do we need this much?" Naruto asked.

Sakura huffed. "We're not drinking all this. I just bought all this because it was a good deal. And these can be used as gifts for Tsunade-sama."

Naruto snorted. "Whatever! My clones should be here in a few minutes with the food."

"Great!" Sakura said and opened one of the cases. "Let's get started, then."

Grimmjow growled.

Sasuke rolled his eyes, brought a large bowl from the kitchen, emptied two sake bottles in to it and placed the bowl in front of Grimmjow.

The other two brats shared a look and turned to Sasuke.

"He drinks?" Sakura said.

"How'd you know that's what he wanted?"

Grimmjow absently wondered how long it would take him to train the other two brats to be as useful. He ignored their chatter as he lapped up the sake from the bowl.

Or rather, he tried to ignore their chatter.

"You don't think it's weird, Grimmjow?" Naruto asked.

"Don't be retarded," Grimmjow said, revelling in their attention. "Even annoying douches like Syazel knew how to treat his elder brother correctly."

"Correctly?" Sakura asked hesitantly.

"He made all sorts of poisons for Yylfordt." Grimmjow chuckled fondly as he emptied the large bowl of sake in front of him. "I personally liked the blood puking one. Man, those losers were hilarious to watch. They always tried to kill each other covertly, but I don't know who they were trying to fool."

Naruto and Sakura sighed.

Sasuke put his saucer down and said softly, "Sakura."

Everyone turned to him.

"Isn't there a poison that makes people puke blood?"

Grimmjow scoffed. "You should just cut your brother open with your sword. Much more fun."

Sasuke contemplated it for a moment before he nodded, opened another sake bottle and filled Grimmjow's bowl again.

"You two..." Naruto shook his head and sipped his sake. "Never mind. So how come you two didn't take the chuunin exams and..."

-x-x-x-x-x-

Grimmjow opened one eye and glared at the person moving around noisily. "Fuck, stop that!"

Three agreeing groans backed his irritated sentiment.

The brats' teacher walked over to them with loud pronounced footsteps. And when he spoke, his voice was undeniably louder and more cheerful than usual. "Oh! It looks like I missed a happy reunion of teammates."

More pained groans and muffled curses filled the air.

"You all drank three cases of sake? Goodness. You've grown up so much..."

"Shut the fuck up!" Grimmjow said winced when his head throbbed from the sound of his own voice.

A muffled thump and an unintelligible sentence later, there was blessed silence.

For a minute.

"I guess I'll just have to tell the Hokage that Team Seven can't accept that high-ranked mission to Suna. There's no way you can deal with the Akatsuki like this."

"Wait! What mission?" Naruto yelled making everyone else groan even as they forced themselves up.

-x-x-x-x-x-

Grimmjow dipped his paws deep in to the sand when they finally entered the barren desert. The brats had looked at him oddly but Grimmjow couldn't stop when he remembered the desert he'd sworn to be King of.

In the almost three years he'd been in this human world, Grimmjow had never bothered trying to open a Garganta. Well, he had tried in a bout of desperation to get away from the seals, but he hadn't been able to open anything.

And he understood why. He had to evolve.

Suddenly unwilling to go deeper in to the desert with them, Grimmjow said, "I'm going to search on my own." He turned to Sasuke, "You better keep that seal distance to it's maximum."

Sasuke huffed. "Whatever."

"But don't you at least need a scent to..." Sakura said.

"I don't." Before anyone could protest, Grimmjow sonido-ed far from the large group.

For all of Grimmjow's smug confidence, it took him six days to find a clear trace of something.

But instead of feeling triumphant or even impressed that Sasuke had kept the proximity seal from troubling him the entire time, Grimmjow felt irritated. Even so blasted a cero at the rocky terrain, pushed his spiritual energy outwards and adopted a smug tone. "Oi, plant-freak, even after almost three years, you're hiding skills are absolute shit."


	11. Unending Irritation

Grimmjow smirked at the pristine black coat decorated with the stylized red cloud. "You're not running away this time?"

The dual-coloured plant-freak snorted.

"And you look liked you healed up since our last fight three years ago." Grimmjow purred obnoxiously, intent on making the plant-freak angry. "Regenerating prey is always so much fun. Even if they have shitty fighting skills, you can take your time and kill them slowly."

Plant-freak crouched and growled. But he spoke with a soft voice, "You seem to be mistaken, you're the prey here."

Grimmjow tensed in preparation as energy- which he reminded himself was chakra- flowed out of the plant-freak and into the earth just as three spots on the ground liquefied and rose up. Bits of dirt, sand and grass flowed up and somehow solidified in to smooth white humanoid shapes that had sharp-toothed smiles. "Clones? How thoughtful of you." Grimmjow chuckled. "You've learnt a new trick to give me an interesting fight."

"This will be more than just interesting," Plant-freak said, "Since it will be your final fight."

"I can't wait to beat that shitty attitude out of you." Grimmjow leaned forward, making sure his spiritual energy was easily accessible.

"Since you like new tricks so much, let me give you another little surprise." Plant-freak smirked smugly. His three white copies mirrored the expression as more chakra flowed into them from the plants, the ground and even Plant-freak.

Even though Grimmjow could only feel and track the spiritual energy aspect of chakra, he felt a mixture of different chakra flowing all around him. Just as he recognized something familiar within the mixture, the chakra separated and filled each white clone. He watched, slightly wary, as the white 'skin' bubbled grotesquely and peeled away to reveal three familiar human forms.

Grimmjow stared at each face in front of him feeling slightly cheated. From the glossy tips of their outrageous hair to their posture and even their individual spiritual energy, everything about the transformed clones in front of him mimicked the three brats perfectly. "You've got to be fucking kidding me..."

Plant-freak chuckled and said in a hoarse voice, "Something wrong kitty?"

Grimmjow raised a paw and cautiously swiped his claws through the air, pushing forward a little bit of his spiritual energy.

The seals on his body, which usually stopped him from attacking the brats, didn't even twinge.

"Perfect!" Grimmjow laughed, relaxing at the inactive seals. "I've wanted to make these damn brats bleed for years."

Grimmjow ignored Plant-freak and jumped on to the nearest replica, a dull-faced Naruto. The instant he bit down on the replica's arm, a strong punch hit his side and dented his armour. He let go of the arm in surprise and jumped away only for a spark of lightning to buzz uncomfortably close to his jaw.

"They can use the brats' actual moves?" Grimmjow leaned a little to the side, whipped his long tail down low and tripped the Sasuke-replica that had gotten too close. Unfortunately, the replica flipped mid-fall and landed in a graceful crouch, eerily similar to how the real Sasuke moved.

"The same moves," Grimmjow said to himself as he ducked another punch from the Sakura-replica and jumped back. The Naruto-replica, instead of creating an army of clones, threw a barrage of weapons at Grimmjow distracting him enough to let the Sasuke-replica to get closer with his sword drawn. Grimmjow jumped up only to have the Sakura-clone already waiting for him with her arm pulled back ready to punch him.

"Too much co-ordination," Grimmjow huffed in annoyance and he sonido-ed behind the Sakura-replica. "The real ones don't have that." He turned mid-air, pounced on the replica and bit the back of the neck even as he dragged his energy coated claws across it's spine.

Instead of the satisfying crunch of bone and taste of blood, Grimmjow tasted something relatively earthy. He gagged and jumped away, watching as the Sakura-replica shifted back into the white clone and fell to the ground.

"That's it?" Grimmjow said, disappointed when the replica didn't get back up, and lazily ducked another barrage of weapons from the Naruto-replica only to see a sword tip rushing towards his eye.

Grimmjow roared, sending out a wave of spiritual energy that knocked the blade off course, and swiped his claws through the air.

The Sasuke-replica, whose irises had somehow changed into a familiar red, ducked Grimmjow's retaliating claw strike and slashed it's sword around again. The metal screeched unpleasantly as it scratched against Grimmjow's armour. Ignoring the faint vibrations reverberating through his armour, Grimmjow wrapped his tail around the sword and pulled it away from the replica's grip with a firm tug. With a careless flick, Grimmjow tossed the sword at the Naruto-replica's location and wondered if the Sasuke-replica would finally do something interesting.

As far as he remembered, the real Sasuke had never lost his sword in a fight.

He even ignored the steady rise of chakra coming from the Naruto-replica's direction, just so that he'd finally have a fun challenge of some sort.

Much to Grimmjow's disappointment, the Sasuke-replica just covered his hands with a very weak crackle of lightning. From previous experience, Grimmjow knew that a little electricity wouldn't do much damage. But he also knew that even the slightest bit of electricity had the annoying ability to make his nerves tingle unpleasantly and distract him.

Not something he needed to deal with in the middle of a fight.

Even if the fight was rather pathetic.

Grimmjow couldn't help but wonder why the replica hadn't bothered to use any fire attacks. That would have been slightly more interesting that the dull consistent use of lightning.

Huffing in annoyance and not bothering to use his sonido, Grimmjow jumped forward and landed a little to the Sasuke-replica's right. He roared at the replica, using enough energy in his attack to push it from it's stationary position. When instead of counter-attacking, the replica tried to anchor itself against another roar, Grimmjow wrapped his tail around the replicas neck and released his tail spikes in obvious. "Should have kept attacking like the real one."

The Sasuke-replica stilled as patches of white appeared all over it's body. In the next second it crumbled to the ground in a shower of dirt and plant matter.

Grimmjow finally turned to the last replica left.

The one that hadn't attacked him in a while.

The one that stupidly stood there, a sword sticking out of it's thigh, still trying to do something with the large amount of chakra that was being condensed in it's hands.

It wasn't even looking at him.

Even the real Naruto wasn't that stupid. Grimmjow huffed in annoyance and poured out his spiritual energy, making sure it surrounded the chakra in the replica's hand.

Carefully going through the motions of a technique that he'd recently perfected, Grimmjow forced his spiritual energy to invade the gathering chakra. The instant it messed up the delicate balance of spiritual and physical energy within the chakra, Grimmjow pulled all the spiritual energy towards him lazily.

As the replica looked at it's empty hands in confusion, Grimmjow gathered the newly collected spiritual energy, condensed it into a weak cero and watched dispassionately as the Naruto-replica burst into chunks of white matter. "That was pathetic."

Any joy he'd felt at being able to hurt the three brats, even if they were just replicas, vanished completely as he realised just how truly pathetic the fight had been. The real brats would have put up a much better fight. One that wouldn't have lasted less than ten minutes. And knowing their personalities, they probably would have offered some interesting verbal banter too.

Grimmjow grimaced as he realized that he was complimenting the three of them.

Suddenly remembering the Plant-freak, Grimmjow looked around and twitched in annoyance when he found himself all alone. A quick check with his pesquisa informed him that the plant-freak was no where near him.

"Damn it," Grimmjow said as the torn pieces of white crumbled away into dirt, leaving no trace of the clones. He glanced around, checked the area with his pesquisa again and tried to salvage the situation. "At least no one will ever know about this shitty fight."

Grimmjow widened the range of his pesquisa until he found three familiar blimps of spiritual energy locked in battle with strong opponents. After a bit of thought, he sonido-ed to the location where two of the brats were. Unfortunately, he arrived just in time to see their strong opponent fall dead.

"Seriously?" Grimmjow snarled in frustration. "What the fuck is wrong with this shitty day? Why couldn't I get the interesting fight?"

Sasuke turned, gasping in obvious weariness, and stared at him in surprise. "Who did you fight?"

"Some pathetic clones of you brats," Grimmjow said as he eyed the dead body for a moment before he looked back at Sasuke. "Out of breath fighting one opponent? That's pathetic."

"Shut up." Sasuke stared at him with narrowed eyes. "I had to fight with less chakra than usual because I've been keeping your proximity seal open."

"So?"

Sasuke twitched. "So, I had to deal with an S-class ninja with half my chakra."

Grimmjow tilted his head to the side, feeling his earlier frustration slowly turn into amusement. "So basically, you were useless and had to depend on those two?" Grimmjow motioned at Naruto and Kakashi who crouched by another dead body.

"No! I dealt the killing blow."

Grimmjow flicked his tail through the air as he looked around the ruined area and scanned it with his pesquisa. "What's the problem, then?"

Sasuke rolled his eyes. "Don't pretend you don't understa..."

Grimmjow jumped away from the boy and ran towards the flicker of spiritual energy that meant that a human soul was somewhere near. He growled in appreciation when he found an angry and distracted soul hovering close to a large crater. Not even questioning why the soul was so far from it's body and shouting at nothing in particular, Grimmjow swallowed it without much fanfare.

Irritable the he hadn't been able to kill anyone and unwilling to be surrounded by humans he couldn't kill, Grimmjow didn't sonido back to the brats. Instead he walked slowly, even when he felt them move to a new location, and detonated a Cero every so often to destroy anything in his path.

He would have continued doing so, except he felt a surge of spiritual energy somewhere in front of him. A surge that quickly shifted into something that felt like a dimensional rip.

Not exactly a Garganta, but definitely a dimensional rip that served as a spiritual pathway of some sort.

Grimmjow hesitated for an instant before he shot forward in a burst of sonido. He landed beside Sasuke just in time to see the redhead, who had definitely been dead before, wake up.

-x-x-x-x-x-

"You knew!"

Grimmjow stared at the girl.

Sakura seemed to wilt under his gaze for a second before she gathered her courage and said, "You knew that Naruto had the…that he's a..."

"Moron?" Grimmjow supplied helpfully.

Sasuke snorted. "She's talking about the tailed beast."

"Naruto is a tailed beast?"

"No!" Sakura said in exasperation, "He's got the nine-tailed demon fox in him."

Grimmjow kicked up some sand and blew on it, watching it rise higher. "Demon? I wonder if eating that would make me sick..."

"Is that all you have to say?" Sakura asked.

Grimmjow walked past the two of them and climbed the stairs of the village walls. When he finally reached the top of the wall, Grimmjow stretched up high and looked out at the sprawling empty desert beyond the village walls. The cool night wind seeped down between interlocking plates of his body armour and chilled bits of his skin beneath.

"I never heard of a desert cat before," Sakura said after a few minutes.

Grimmjow didn't acknowledge her even when both brats stopped by the wall.

"You seem so comfortable in the sand," Sakura continued in the ensuing silence. "You're a desert-born creature, aren't you?"

"Born?" Grimmjow snorted. "I wasn't born in a desert."

"But you lived in it. You must have, because you're not bothered by all the sand and the wind and, you must have been..."

"Lived? No, I thrived in it." Grimmjow scratched his claws against the stone wall in amusement. "And given time, I would have ruled over it."

"So then, there's more of your kind out there," Sakura said softly, "hidden in the desert."

"No," Grimmjow said as he scratched a thin line in the wall. "I'm the only one here."

Out of the corner of his eyes, he noticed that both brats shared irritatingly unreadable looks.

"I'm sorry."

Grimmjow snorted. "If you want to fucking apologize for something, then apologize for the damn seals on my back."

Sakura looked away from him. "I'm sorry about that too."

"I'm not forgiving you until these shitty things are removed," Grimmjow said. "And definitely not until I make you brats bleed."

Sakura glanced at him solemnly, with sorrow and curiosity but without any trace of fear.

Grimmjow turned away and scratched the wall with his claws even more viciously leaving deeper gouges. The vibrations that shot up his limbs every time his claws dragged through the stone sated his angry blood lust just a little.

It was a pathetic way for him to calm down.

Then again, it was pathetic that he actually had to calm down and not hurt the brat because of a seal painted on his body.

"Who's Aizen?"

Grimmjow hissed. His tightly controlled spiritual energy snapped outward and the stone under his claws exploded in to tiny flecks dust, leaving behind a hole. He sneezed as he inhaled the dust particles and turned to Sakura with narrowed eyes.

"He was human, wasn't he?" She looked between him and the destroyed portion of the wall. "And he did something to you, something that took you away from your home and left you alone."

Grimmjow wondered what had brought this on. Had he blabbed about Hueco Mundo after drinking all the sake the other day?

"It's obvious, you know. The way you hate humans can only mean that a human did something to you," Sakura frowned heavily and clenched her fingers in to tight fists. "Made you hate humans. So, who is he?"

"Why the fuck are you asking me all this shit now?" Grimmjow growled. "After three years."

"Because when we entered the desert," Sakura stared out into the desert. "You looked like... you were home."

Grimmjow scoffed. "Have you been drinking like that old hag you stupid brat?"

Sakura didn't rise to the bait. He knew that she wouldn't. But he was still surprised when she said, "Would you return to…wherever you home is if you didn't have the seals on you?"

Grimmjow looked out in to the desert, irritated because he couldn't answer that question.

"Was Aizen your former owner?"

"For fuck's sake, why are you so damn chatty?" Grimmjow growled but said, "I was never owned by anyone."

Sakura stayed silent for a few minutes. "We don't own you either, you know. You're our team-mate."

"Nobody could ever own me," Grimmjow stated, yet again cursing the seals that prevented him from hurting the brats.

"Of course."

"And just who the fuck are you calling a team-mate?" Grimmjow growled as he went over their words.

Sakura laughed obnoxiously and ran while Sasuke just stared out at the desert.


	12. Sealed Secrecy

Grimmjow bit the fish viciously, taking an inordinate time to chew noisily.

Even though there was no real need for him to eat, Grimmjow wanted to sink his teeth into soft delicate flesh and rip it away from bone. Unfortunately for him, the fish was the only option available to him at that moment.

"Is there any lingering pain from the knock-out seal activating?" Sakura said.

Grimmjow snarled at the reminder of being knocked out and grabbed another fish.

Sasuke grimaced. "You're getting fish guts all over the place."

Grimmjow looked straight at Sasuke and tore the fish apart making sure that scales, guts and flesh scattered around the usually pristine living room.

Sasuke twitched. "Aren't you over-reacting?"

Grimmjow dug his claws into the wooden floor and scratched, pleased when all three brats winced.

"If we told you everything in Suna, their ninja would have found out and used the information. We'd have lost our chance to find Orochimaru ourselves," Sakura said, trying to sound appeasing.

Naruto nodded. "When we capture that Akatsuki spy at the meeting point next week, we'll finally know where Orochimaru is."

"Instead of telling me first, you waited until we were in that hag's office..." Grimmjow paused in disgust, realizing that his words sounded like he'd felt betrayed by the brats for not telling him things first.

Naruto turned to the other two with a questioning look at the abrupt pause.

Sakura shrugged but Sasuke stared at Grimmjow.

Grimmjow flexed his tail, wrapped it around one of the potted plants nearby and threw it against the far wall. The resultant crash didn't pacify Grimmjow much. "Have you three retards become stupider?" He yelled. "Even I know that they won't let princess go if there's a chance of finding Orochimaru."

"What?" Sasuke scoffed and said, "Don't be ridiculous. They know how long we've been searching for him."

Grimmjow laughed mockingly. "Do they really? Did you tell them about all the bases we destroyed when searching for him? Oh, what's that? You never told them because they wouldn't let your bratty ass go?"

Sasuke rolled his eyes. "That's not the same thing."

"And since he can't go," Grimmjow continued as though Sasuke hadn't spoken, "I can't go..."

"Why won't they let him go?" Sakura interrupted, rubbing her ears in irritation. "If the meeting ambush doesn't work, he's the best bait to lure Orochimaru out."

Naruto snickered at Sasuke's annoyed sigh.

But Grimmjow scoffed. "I consider him bait."

"So do we," Sakura said even as she sent Sasuke an apologetic look. "You know what I mean."

Sasuke waved her comments away nonchalantly.

"No," Grimmjow said. "He's your team-mate first, isn't he?"

"So?" Sakura shrugged and said, "He's still bait."

Grimmjow huffed in annoyance. "The problem is your disgusting human sentiment to protect..."

All three brats blinked and shared looks.

"There's nothing wrong with that," Naruto said softly.

"The problem comes when other humans like that old hag decide to protect the little princess," Grimmjow shot back.

Sasuke leaned forward with narrowed eyes, all traces of patient restraint gone. "That's..."

"Ridiculous?" Grimmjow barred his teeth. "Fine, let me rephrase it so that even you dumb shits can understand. The problem comes when the humans decide they need to protect his shitty eyes."

All three of them stilled as they processed his words.

"For fuck's sake!" Grimmjow said, "Even shitty fraccion would have known better that to give up information for free."

"Fraki…on?" Naruto blinked, shook his head and looked between the other two brats. "But they can't really stop us from going. We got the information, so we get first dibs for the mission."

Sasuke rose to his feet with clenched fists while Sakura frowned heavily.

"You gave that information away for free, retard," Grimmjow said, physically stopping himself from attacking Naruto for his stupid reasoning. He didn't want to get knocked out by the seal again in the same day. "The only way you could have gotten _dibs_ is if you had asked for it."

"The Sharingan is a power that helped create our village. They wouldn't want to risk losing the last..." Sakura paused and frowned thoughtfully.

Sasuke grit his teeth in irritation and moved towards one of his windows.

"But still," Sakura said, "Let's just wait and see what Tsunade-shishou actually decides about the mission. We're probably over thinking things."

Sasuke turned back to them just as a bird screeched loudly outside. "The Hokage is calling us."

Grimmjow didn't bother to get up from his spot. He just stretched, yawned widely and burrowed into his pile of pillows as the three brats left the apartment. He'd just fallen into the comfortable lull of sleep, when the door slammed opened and three sets of footsteps stomped inside. Grimmjow opened his eyes and glanced at their angered expressions feeling vindictively smug. "So shit heads, was I right? Or was I right?"

Sasuke slumped onto the couch noisily while Sakura paced around the room.

"We've been put on village standby," Naruto said, sounding shocked as he sat on the floor, a little too close to Grimmjow's area of the living room.

"Village standby?" Grimmjow hoped that didn't actually mean what it sounded like.

"No missions outside the village," Sasuke said dully, "not even border patrol until the Orochimaru situation is dealt with."

"Like hell I'm going sit around and wait," Grimmjow said, "And situation? Just call it a fuck up waiting to happen."

"They'll probably send an ANBU team," Sasuke said. "Less chance of failure."

Grimmjow scoffed.

But it was Sakura who spoke, her voice hard and angry as she paced behind the couch. "As if that matters. Orochimaru evaded everyone, even the ANBU, after the Forest of Death."

Grimmjow actually stayed silent, wondering what had sparked her anger.

"Not only does it reek of stupidity, but your eventual failure will mark our village as weak!" Sakura said, obviously miming someone else's voice. "Bastards."

Sasuke and Naruto shared a look but didn't say a word.

"And then they had the nerve to say that we hadn't had a rank promotion since graduation unlike everyone else from our year," Sakura raised her voice. "Our ranks don't mean we're useless."

"I can list just how useless you lot really are," Grimmjow said.

But Sakura just kept ranting, as though she hadn't heard him. "They just dismissed us like we were good-for-nothing kids."

"Yeah!" Naruto said, "Stupid old farts."

"Elderly people have fragile bones. It wouldn't take too much to..." Sakura paused and pinched the bridge of her nose. "What the hell am I thinking?"

"Why settle for breaking bones," Grimmjow said, "when you can just kill them?"

Sakura twitched. "Shut up. I can't do that."

Grimmjow tutted. "That's why you have such a low rank."

Sakura leaned over the back of the couch and stared at Grimmjow thoughtfully. "You know, now that I think about it, their insults were kind of lacking. I mean, you insult us a lot better than them."

"Obviously," Grimmjow said. "They were probably too easy on you."

Sakura tapped her chin. "I wonder why their words bothered me when you've said even worse stuff."

Naruto frowned. "But Grimmjow is Grimmjow."

"The fuck is that supposed to mean?"

"You actually know us," Sasuke said to Grimmjow, as if that explained everything.

But all three brats just nodded in shared understanding.

"So why should we be bothered by their third-rate insults? They don't know anything about us." Sakura grinned. "We took out two Akatsuki and got vital information from one of them. We saved the Kazekage and deepened our alliance with Suna. We're damn brilliant!"

"Retards!" Grimmjow growled angrily. "I can't understand how your stupid brains work."

But Sakura was too wrapped up in her own thoughts. "We should just ignore the insults because we're awesome as a team. Like hell we need ranks to prove our capabilities."

Everyone stared at a triumphant looking Sakura for a long moment.

"I always knew you were the crazier one," Grimmjow said, "You couldn't have looked so much like Syazel for no reason."

Sakura just smirked at him, looking more amused than angered by his words.

Before Grimmjow could try to prod her into a rage, Naruto said, "I wonder why ba-san didn't stop their useless blabbering."

"She can't afford to alienate the elders," Sakura said with a dismissive huff. "They're part of the Daimyo's council."

"So what? They were annoying," Naruto said as he stretched and lay back on the living room floor.

Grimmjow narrowed his eyes and pulled one of his pillows that was a bit too close to Naruto's prone form.

"Anyone with that much political power can't be anything but annoying," Sakura said as she jumped over the back of the couch and sat down beside Sasuke.

"You guys missed something important." Sasuke looked pointedly at Naruto as he moved across the couch to make room for Sakura. "They seemed quite eager on keeping you in the village too, idiot."

Naruto blinked. "What? No way."

"What makes you say that?" Sakura said.

"The Hokage didn't even look at Naruto the entire time we were in the office."

"Maybe she just wanted to maintain a professional image in front of the elders," Sakura said.

Sasuke quirked an eyebrow at her.

Sakura pressed her lips into a thin line for a moment. "You never know."

"Who cares about all that? We need to concentrate on the important thing." Naruto said. "How do we convince them to send us out to find Orochimaru?"

After a few minutes of silence, Sakura said, "Grimmjow, do you have any suggestions?"

Grimmjow stared at them haughtily.

Sakura twitched. "Sorry for ignoring you and not asking you first."

Grimmjow didn't relent.

"Grimmjow," Naruto whined, "Aren't you angry? Don't you want to get that snake-bastard?"

Grimmjow absently scratched his claws against the hardwood floors along the old scratch marks there. "I told you this would happen."

"Yes, but..."

"Who were the dumbasses who gave up the important information for free?" Grimmjow said.

Naruto slumped forward dramatically and mumbled moodily to himself.

"Information," Sakura whispered. "We could just use other information to..."

"Do you have any information to negotiate with?" Sasuke interrupted.

Sakura looked at Grimmjow pointedly.

Grimmjow scoffed. "I don't have any information to make that hag helpful."

"But she let you and Sasuke go on patrol duty by yourselves these past three years," Sakura wheedled him. "Are just going to ignore the first solid lead on Orochimaru you've had in three years?"

Grimmjow turned away from her, a clear sign that he didn't want to listen to her any more.

"You... you're not as angry as you were earlier," Sasuke said. He leaned forward. "You're leaving the village and going to the spy's meeting point, aren't you?"

Grimmjow stared at him pointedly and stretched.

Sasuke twitched. "Do you even know where to go?"

Grimmjow didn't stop staring.

"You think I'll be able to leave the village so easily?" Sasuke said drolly.

"Who's going to stop me from taking your bait ass out of this village?" Grimmjow said as he stood.

"What?" Naruto yelled.

At the same time Sakura said, "You two can't..."

Grimmjow ignored their raised voices and stood by the balcony.

Sasuke stared at Grimmjow, sighed in resignation and opened the balcony door.

With an easy jump, Grimmjow landed onto the village road below and sonido-ed away from the voices towards the Forest of Death. Even as he sniffed out the scent trail of some giant forest creatures to kill, all Grimmjow could really think about was how close he was to finally killing Orochimaru.

By the time he'd killed three large tigers, burnt down a patch of very hungry carnivorous plants and finally exterminated the large centipede nest it was pretty late at night. Grimmjow looked around the moonlit clearing, revelling in the gory carnage he'd created in the past few hours.

As he rubbed his armour against one of the taller prickly bushes to get cleaned up, Grimmjow noticed a human scent in the air. He took a deeper sniff, since the scent was faint and far away, and activated his pesquisa to keep track of the human's location.

By the time he took another deep sniff, Grimmjow knew that the human who was headed towards him was one of Danzo's men because of the unique scent mix of blood, decayed dead flesh mixed in with earthy scents of poison.

Keeping a steady watch on his visitor via his pesquisa, Grimmjow moved closer to a large chunk of centipede flesh and squished it playfully just as his visitor entered the area. Without looking up at the man, Grimmjow crushed another torn chunk of centipede flesh allowing the nauseating sounds of squelching flesh filled the air.

Danzo's masked representative cleared his throat politely. "Danzo-sama can get you permission to leave the village and go after Orochimaru."

Knowing that he didn't need anyone's permission, Grimmjow didn't stop crushing the centipede flesh but he looked up at the masked figure, intrigued by the offer. "What does he want?"

"Leave Hatake Kakashi's squad."

Grimmjow crushed another chunk of flesh, making sure to be extra noisy. "I'm bound to the shitty brats with a proximity seal."

"Get Uchiha Sasuke to leave with you," the masked man replied evenly.

Grimmjow turned away from the man dismissively. "If you don't have a body for me to cut up, then I have no reason to stay and listen to your bullshit."

Grimmjow ignored the masked man's protests and sonido-ed out of the forest eager to get back to the apartment and sleep. But the minute he landed in the cleaned up living room, Grimmjow tensed as he caught the lingering trace of a scent that wasn't supposed to be there. A scent that was eerily similar to the masked man he had just left in the forest.

Though his pesquisa showed only one person's spiritual energy in the house, Grimmjow warily followed the scent into Sasuke's bedroom. "Oi, shithead."

Sasuke just kept breathing deeply in his sleep.

Never having had to wake the overly paranoid Sasuke before, Grimmjow jumped up on the bed with a single leap and yelled louder. "Wake the fuck up!"

"What? Grimmjow..." Sasuke mumbled sleepily as the bed moved. He sat up and gasped, clutching his side in obvious pain.

Grimmjow sniffed around the room and growled. "What the hell happened to you?"

"I don't know." Sasuke pulled up his shirt, glanced down in confusion and then paled in horror.

Grimmjow eyed the harsh and jagged black design etched on Sasuke's pale skin. "What the fuck is that?"

"Some sort of..." Sasuke ran his fingers over the design carefully, flinched and said, "A variation of a proximity seal."

"What? You're a fucking seal expert now?" Grimmjow said. "Don't make shit up."

Sasuke shot him a look, but bit his lip and squinted at the seal. "I've been reading up on proximity seals for the past three years because of you. I know a proximity seal when I see one."

Grimmjow didn't remember seeing him reading anything about seals. Then again, Grimmjow never really paid attention to what the brat did outside of border patrol time.

Sasuke's voice interrupted his thoughts. "They purposely made some of the seal properties visible so that I'd know exactly what it's meant to do. My proximity has been set to keep me within..."

"Within what?"

Sasuke's face paled to a sickly horrified complexion. "This can't be possible. It's not."

"Within what?" Grimmjow repeated as he placed his head directly in Sasuke's line of sight.

"It says barrier," Sasuke said and pointed to one of the visible symbols. "Village barrier."

It took a moment for Grimmjow to put everything together. "Proximity seal set to keep you within the village barrier." And it took another moment to realize just how his own freedom would be limited if Sasuke was stuck inside the village. Grimmjow hastily reminded himself that Sasuke had maintained a large range for the proximity seal, for six days, when they'd been in Suna. Unfortunately, it didn't reassure him at all.

"Damn it!" Sasuke groaned and he hunched forward and clutched his side. "It's linked to my chakra system."

"What does that mean?" Grimmjow growled out.

"It's means, this seal is the real deal. If it activates and damages my chakra system... say goodbye to any control I have over the range of your proximity seal," Sasuke said heatedly.

"How the fuck did you sleep through someone putting a seal on you?" Grimmjow asked, unable to contain his rage any more. "Where the fuck is your sense of self-preservation?"

Sasuke glared at him, red eyes blazing, looking nothing like his usual calm self. "You think I'm not bothered by this? Someone came in here and put a seal on _me_."

And that was the crux of things.

"They must have waited till you were completely alone. If I was here, I would have killed anyone who tried to sneak in. And if those two brats were here..." Grimmjow hissed at a sudden thought.

"What?" Sasuke said as he rubbed his seal.

"Those two better not have any new seals."

"You think they..." Sasuke scrambled off the bed. He gathered his clothes hastily, trying and failing not to wince with each movement.

Grimmjow snarled as he realized that Danzo had made his move and gotten an advantage. "If I was that bastard, I'd make sure to get a complete victory."

Sasuke stared at him. "You know who did this?"

"I know a lot of things."

"Did you know they were going to do this?" Sasuke said, sounding vaguely betrayed.

"If I knew, I would have ripped them apart. Why the fuck would I want my movements limited?"

"So," Sasuke said hesitantly, "now what?"

"Now we make sure you're the only one who's been compromised."

Sasuke's pale skin flushed slightly. "Don't say it like that."

"Like what?"

"Nothing," Sasuke said and attached his weapons.

Grimmjow sniffed around the bedroom, taking in all the scents. The faint trace of Danzo's masked man only lingered at a spot close to Sasuke's bed. "Must have been one of those clones that disappeared from here itself," Grimmjow said. "Still doesn't explain how it got in or why the fuck you slept through the whole thing."

Sasuke didn't say anything. He didn't even look at Grimmjow as he attached his final weapon's pouch onto his hip.

Grimmjow wrapped his tail around Sasuke's torso tightly, ignoring the pained protest and sonido-ed out of the room, through the open balcony, into the village and towards the next brat's closest house. Which was Sakura's.

They landed on the street directly in front of Sakura's house.

Sasuke took a deep breath, rubbed his side once and ran up the wall to Sakura's window. With a quick flick of his hand, he opened the window and jumped in.

Grimmjow tracked all the sounds coming out of the open window even as he catalogued the scents in the area and kept his pesquisa open to it's widest range. Rushed conversation paused with a familiar groan and Sakura's panicked yelp. Grimmjow jumped up, stepped lightly on the window ledge and landed inside Sakura's bedroom.

Sasuke glanced at him with a grimace as he clutched the back of his neck. "There's something on my neck. It's not letting me tell Sakura about the seal."

"Seal?" Sakura interrupted, sounding confused.

Sasuke turned to Sakura and opened his mouth to speak again, but choked and let out an indistinct garble of sound while clutching the back of his neck even harder.

Grimmjow stepped forwards. "You talked to me about the seal without any problem."

Sasuke turned back to him. "I think it's another seal."

"Fuck!" Grimmjow turned to Sakura. "The useless Princess managed to get a seal on him when I was out in the Forest."

"What?"

"Some kind of proximity seal that's supposed to keep him within the village barrier."

Sasuke slowly stood up, wincing with each movement.

"And now apparently there's another seal to stop him from talking about the first seal with you." Grimmjow growled, annoyed that his pesquisa didn't pick the masked-man's energy.

Sakura looked unusually pale. "You mean Orochi..."

Grimmjow interrupted her impatiently. "As if Orochimaru would just come over for a damn visit. Shit like that doesn't happen so conveniently for me. It was someone else... so brat, any new fancy seals you feel like telling us about?"

"I don't have a seal," Sakura said as she grabbed various pouches and things from her bedside table.

Grimmjow grunted, already expecting that because he couldn't find masked man's scent or energy in the area.

Sakura tightened the straps of the pouch across her back, shoved her feet into her long ninja sandals and stared at both of them with clenched fists. "Let's go check on Naruto then."

The situation at Naruto's apartment was similar to Sakura's place. No lingering scents, no new seals on the brat and lots of confused conversation while Sasuke remained unhelpfully silent.

They eventually returned to Sasuke's place, with Sakura and Naruto stuck in a heated discussion about seals and how to examine Sasuke's new seals safely. Grimmjow blindly followed, wondering just when all the brats had learnt about seals even as he increased his pesquisa's range in search of the masked man.

As they settled around Sasuke's living room, Sakura said, "if you can't talk about it, can you show at least us?"

Sasuke grabbed the hem of his shirt and pulled up, only to stop abruptly and clutch the back of his neck.

"The seal on your neck acts according to your thoughts and intentions, huh?" Sakura said. "That's problematic. So you can't do anything to..."

Grimmjow grabbed part of Sasuke's shirt and pulled till it ripped off.

"Looks like Grimmjow is the loophole to the seal on your neck." Sakura tried to sound amused but wasn't able to hide her worry as she stared at the large seal. "Keep thinking that you're talking to him about it then."

Naruto on the other hand, moved till he had a clear view of Sasuke's neck.

"Well?" Sasuke said after a long moment, keeping his eyes firmly on Grimmjow.

Naruto scratched his chin. "I'm not completely sure but I think it's like the secrecy seal I control on Grimmjow."

"What? That hag put a secrecy seal on me?"

"You can talk, Grimmjow," Sakura said as Naruto prodded the side of Sasuke's neck. "People were worried about you spreading village sensitive information."

"So," Sasuke said. "Aren't you going to tell me who's responsible for this?"

"It's not like you know the bastard," Grimmjow replied.

"Grimmjow! Just..."

"Danzo. One of Danzo's masked men came in here and put a seal on you when you slept. What are you going to fucking do about it, brat?"

"Danzo!" Sakura exclaimed.

Grimmjow turned to Sakura and narrowed his eyes. "You know him?"

"He's one of the three village elders on the Daimyo's council. And he's Tsunade-shishou's political enemy. How do _you_ know him?"

Grimmjow snarled in disgust. "An old fart? I've been trading and stealing information with some senile old fart?"

"You never met him?" Sasuke said.

"Trading and stealing information?" Sakura asked at the same time.

"Fuck, how could I have been so stupid not to..." Grimmjow trailed off in disgust and anger.

"You couldn't have known that he'd do this," Sasuke said.

Hadn't he? Grimmjow berated himself. Shouldn't he have expected something like this after finding out about Danzo's 'Sharingan' eye from that tortured man's soul?

"The seal isn't the same as Grimmjow's." Naruto interrupted their conversation. "It feels different but I remember a part of the design from another seal ero-sennin showed me. It's supposed to stop Sasuke from communicating about these seals in any way with other humans or animals. Even if someone saw them, Sasuke can't talk about the seals at all."

"But he can talk about both seals with Grimmjow," Sakura said.

The brats looked at each other in confusion.

"It's broken?" Naruto ventured to guess.

Sasuke closed his eyes. "Doesn't feel broken."

"I must have been really delusional." Grimmjow scoffed. "Expecting you brats to actually do something useful."

"Maybe the seal is that way on purpose," Sakura said.

"Why even bother putting the secrecy seal in the first place," Sasuke said in annoyance almost to himself.

"Why bother putting any seals at all? Isn't it obvious?" Sakura tilted her head to the side."You were completely at the mercy of this person. They could have killed you, kidnapped you but they chose to put seals on you. What does that tell you?"

Sasuke frowned deeply for a few moments. "A power play of some sort?"

"A power play." Sakura nodded. "It's like he's saying, 'you are at my mercy and I can do whatever I want'. And by letting you talk to Grimmjow only...er, I can't explain that."

"I told you who's responsible," Grimmjow said and narrowed his eyes. "You'd never have known who put the seals on you if it wasn't for me. And I wouldn't have known what the seal did if you didn't tell me."

Naruto frowned. "But Sasuke really shouldn't be able to talk with you about the seal because you're an animal."

"Animal?" Grimmjow repeated and paused in realization. "That's right, I'd be considered an animal even though I'm not. So Sasuke wasn't supposed to tell me about the seals."

"What do you mean not an animal?" Sasuke said.

"That's not important!" Grimmjow grinned. "Danzo made a mistake."

"Okay, even if he did make a mistake." Sakura looked like she didn't believe that. "It doesn't explain anything."

Grimmjow didn't have a reply for that.

"Why now?" Sasuke said. "Why after all these years?"

Sakura shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. I really don't know much about Danzo."

"He wanted Sasuke to leave the team," Grimmjow said, trying to make sense of everything he's heard and everything he knew. "Today was the first time he mentioned you."

"What?" Sasuke whispered.

"Today, at the forest, that masked man said Danzo would let me go after Orochimaru if I got you to leave the team." Grimmjow snarled and paced around the room. "But when he was telling me that, his clone was over here putting that damn seal on you. That bastard gave me a fake offer."

"Wait, when you say masked men," Sakura said, "describe them. The clothes and mask."

Grimmjow stared at her dully. "Animal-like mask, black clothes, gloves, cloak and sword on their backs."

"That's the ANBU uniform," Naruto exclaimed.

Grimmjow narrowed his eyes. "I thought those people worked for old hag."

"Yeah, they're supposed to," Sakura said.

"The ones I met worked for Danzo," Grimmjow said. "I know that for sure."

"Internal corruption?" Sasuke wondered out loud, not even doubting Grimmjow's words. "What's my role supposed to be in all this? Was I chosen because of my eyes?"

"What if he's not after Sasuke?" Naruto said hesitantly. "I am the, you know..."

Everyone silently contemplated that angle for a moment.

"I don't know why I didn't see this before," Sakura said with a deep thoughtful frown. Everyone turned to her as she looked between Sasuke and Naruto. "Having people come after both of you means that you're both the 'princesses' of our team."

For a moment Grimmjow forgot about the confusing drama of the seals. "Two princesses. Is that even possible?"

"Is this really the time?" Sasuke said.

Sakura shrugged. "By understanding the shift in our team role dynamics we improve our battle formations. Since there are two 'princesses' in the team, it means we can't let you two go off on your own, or else you might get kidnapped."

"That bullshit actually sounds legit," Grimmjow said as he moved to his pillow pile.

Sakura grinned. "I know, right?"

"Sakura-chan!" Naruto groaned and ducked his head in embarrassment.

"What? We've already been pulled into some sort of political conflict," Sakura said seriously. "So I need to practice my BS-ing skills."

Grimmjow settled down on his pillow pile and concentrated on his pesquisa again, examining every blip of energy the technique picked up.

Naruto prodded Sasuke's neck angrily.

"Idiot!" Sasuke swatted Naruto's hand away in annoyance.

"Why does this stuff always happen to us?" Naruto said. "It's always our team who gets the creepy enemies."

Sasuke glanced back for an instant and snorted. "Isn't it good that we're in such high demand? We'll never get bored."

Grimmjow interrupted them with an annoyed snarl. "How are you going to get the seals off?"

"If I knew how to remove something like this," Sasuke pointed to the seal on his side and said, "I would have already removed the proximity seal on you."

"And the only seals I really only know about are tracking seals and medical seals," Sakura said.

"And I'm really only good with summoning seals right now," Naruto said sheepishly.

Grimmjow scoffed. "Like I expected any better."

"I'm surprised you're not going after Danzo's man," Sasuke said. "Killing him would break this seal."

"If I could find the fucker, he'd be dead already." Grimmjow snarled before he could stop himself. "But it's like that bastard doesn't exist inside the village."

Sasuke glanced at him warily. "What are you saying?"

"If he didn't leave the village he's hidden himself too well. No trace of his scent or energy," Grimmjow said and closed his eyes. "Only two people hid themselves from me so completely inside this damn village."

Sakura looked queasy. "Orochimaru and Kabuto."

Naruto bit his lip. "What does that mean?"

"It's probably just coincidence," Sakura said.

Sasuke scoffed. "There's no such thing as coincidence. Grimmjow could tell when that Akatsuki plant creature was hiding at the Valley of End, so for people to have the skill to hide from his senses..."

Grimmjow kept his eyes closed and entered a semi-meditative state that allowed him to concentrate on his pesquisa better. But the brats' voices still reached him clearly.

"Orochimaru might some connection to Danzo," Sakura whispered grimly. "And Danzo having some corrupt ANBU working for him. This gets worse by the minute."

"And we don't even know the complete story," Sasuke said tiredly.

"It's probably a ploy against Tsunade-shishou. What else could it be?"

Naruto shifted noisily. "Shouldn't we tell someone about everything that happened tonight?"

"No," Sasuke said.

"Yes," Sakura replied at the same time.

There was a moment of silence.

"We need help," Sakura said. "We'll need to tell Kakashi-sensei at least."

"Think Sakura. There's obviously more to this than we can understand."

"Isn't that a good reason to get help from someone who can help us understand?" Sakura sounded annoyed. "Or at least someone who can remove the seals? Maybe Jiraiya."

"We can't." Sasuke sounded frustrated. "If our village is in the middle of some hidden political struggle, we can't blindly trust anyone or just... we need to be smart about this."

"You don't trust Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura sounded scandalized.

"Right now I don't trust the people around him. If something happens to him because we..." Sasuke sighed. "Let's wait and see if Danzo tries something else."

" _Then_ we'll talk to someone," Sakura said resolutely.

Sasuke didn't say anything.

"Just what the hell is that man thinking?" Sakura said.

Finally Naruto said, "So, we're staying here together from now on?"

Grimmjow opened his eyes immediately, dropped his pesquisa and growled. "No! Just no."

But the three nodded.

"I get the guest room," Sakura said and stood up.

"Then the couch is mine," Naruto said, looking a little too happy as he moved on to the couch. "Perfect! We're room-mates from now on, Grimmjow."

The day just kept getting worse.

"You've got to be shitting me," Grimmjow growled. "Why the fuck are you two staying here?"

"Safety in numbers," Sakura said simply and walked to the guest room.

Naruto tucked a few weapons in and around the couch. "Sasuke will feel better if he's not alone."

"He's not alone. I live here," Grimmjow pointed out.

"And now we all live here." Naruto stretched and yawned widely as he burrowed deeper into the couch, apparently trying to find the most comfortable spot.

Grimmjow glanced up at Sasuke. "Oi, why the fuck are you just standing there like an idiot? Tell them to get lost."

"It's better if they're here." Sasuke just shrugged. "Less chance of them getting any creepy visitors."

Common sense. Grimmjow knew there was a reason he never liked it. "Damn brats."

Sasuke shot him an apologetic look and headed to his own bedroom.

Grimmjow turned away from Naruto, who was already fast asleep, and closed his eyes again. He took a deep breath and activated his pesquisa, making sure it had maximum range.

And then he carefully assessed each spiritual energy that showed up.

Only for his pesquisa to get disrupted when a loud snore reached his ears.

Grimmjow opened his eyes and stared at Naruto as another loud snore filled the room. "Hey dumbass, be quiet."

Grimmjow congratulated himself smugly when it became silent and re-activated his pesquisa.

Another snore disrupted his concentration.

He ignored it, considering it a waste of time and energy that would be better spent searching for Danzo's masked man. He could put up with a few snores in his search for that elusive spiritual energy.

Another loud snore filled the room.

Grimmjow jumped up, ready to kill that damn brat and... Grimmjow took a deep breath as he remembered being knocked out earlier that day for trying to attack the brats in the hag's office. He grabbed his largest and nicest pillow, scoffed when Naruto only twitched slightly in his sleep and silently padded towards Sasuke's room.

The minute Grimmjow shoved the door open, a wide-awake Sasuke propped himself up and whispered, "What's the matter?"

Grimmjow ignored the question as a loud snore filtered in to the bedroom. He closed the door hastily to keep the snores from the living room unheard and stared up at Sasuke while keeping a firm grip on his large pillow.

It didn't even take a minute for Sasuke to scoot off the bed with a muttered curse. "Damn Naruto."

Grimmjow jumped on the bed, placed his large pillow at the centre and grabbed the pillows that were on the bed as well as Sasuke pulled out a futon from the cupboard. It took some time to arrange the pillows and make it just right, but Grimmjow laid down in his newly created spot with satisfaction.

Sasuke straightened out his futon and said, "I'm sure the seal wouldn't have knocked you out if you woke Naruto. You woke me up before without any problems."

"Wake him?" Grimmjow muttered and closed his eyes. "I wanted to put him into an eternal sleep."

Sasuke snorted. "I wouldn't clean those bloodstains so we'd have to move."

"Smothering him with a pillow wouldn't leave bloodstains."

Sasuke shuffled noisily for a moment and murmured. "Dull way to kill someone."

"Waste of a good pillow too."

"You have too many anyway," Sasuke retorted easily.

"Still a waste," Grimmjow said.

The room became silent but it still distracted Grimmjow from activating his pesquisa.

Grimmjow opened an eye and scoffed when he noticed Sasuke staring up at the ceiling instead of sleeping. "Don't tell me you're fucking afraid to sleep."

"I'm not afraid. The seal just hurts," Sasuke blurted out in an almost whining tone. He sighed and rubbed his side. "Feels like it's going to explode."

"Deal with it you wuss," Grimmjow said. "If anyone's in danger from exploding from too many seals on their body, it's me."

"What?" Sasuke said. Then he snorted. "I don't think you can explode from having too many seals on you."

Grimmjow licked his teeth absently. "Exploding is a nice way to kill someone."

"Too fast though," Sasuke said after some thought. "Better to maim someone with an explosion and then kill them slowly."

"True." Grimmjow conceded and closed his eyes again. "Sad that humans can't regenerate. Indefinite maiming would have been fun."

"Did you," Sasuke paused to place a hand over his wide yawn and said, "forget? Kabuto regenerates."

Grimmjow actually stilled in surprise for a moment as he recalled that bit of information. In the very next moment though, numerous scenarios on all the fun painful things he could do to Kabuto filled Grimmjow's mind. He chortled at the thought of wiping that smug smile off of Kabuto's face. Then he had an even happier thought.

"Wait, if that bastard can regenerate, does that mean that Orochimaru can..." Grimmjow paused in disbelief when he caught sight of Sasuke.

With his eyes closed and a hand clutching his side, Sasuke's breaths were soft and even, a sure sign that he had already fallen asleep.

"Typical brat!" Grimmjow scoffed in irritation. "Go to sleep just when I need to know something." Grimmjow briefly entertained the thought of waking Sasuke by blasting the wall next to the boy, but decided it would be more productive to search for the masked-man's spiritual energy.

He activated his pesquisa yet again.


	13. Useful Gossip

Tsunade tapped the mud-encrusted crystal statue. "I can't believe you just found this on your D-rank weeding mission."

All three brats sighed in unison.

Grimmjow prodded Sasuke's foot insistently till he got the boy's attention and mimed attacking the blonde woman. The energy signatures of Tsuande's hidden guards flickered in preparation.

Not even taking a moment to consider Grimmjow's offer, Sasuke shook his head and tightened the range of Grimmjow's proximity seal again with an apologetic shrug.

"Shishou..."

"Yes, yes," Tsunade waved her hands dismissively as she rubbed some dirt clumps off the statue. "You were just minding your own business, weeding the garden when you found one of Konoha's lost treasures from the founder's era."

"So what's the problem?" Naruto interrupted loudly.

"The problem? You've only been doing missions inside the village for the past two weeks but this is your twelfth D-rank mission that I've upgraded."

"We're not doing it on purpose," Sakura said with an embarrassed shrug. "Things just _happen_ around us during our D-ranks."

"Not like this and not so frequently," Tsunade said as she looked through her book. "Finding an Iwa-spy while renovating the hot springs, uncovering a drug smuggling ring on a dog-walking mission and even finding that field of highly sought after strawberry begonias weren't _too_ outrageous. But unearthing a historical treasure when weeding..."

"For fuck's sake," Grimmjow interrupted in frustration, losing all pretence of mute restraint. "Just pay us so we can leave already."

Tsunade slammed her book shut, waved away the large puff of dust and narrowed her eyes at Grimmjow. "If you're talking, you must be _feeling better._ "

Grimmjow sneezed loudly and swatted the dust away.

"Does this mean Team Seven is finally able to take missions outside the village?" Tsunade pointed to one of the thick ledgers on her desk. "I have the foreign mission roster right here. I'll find you lot the perfect mission and get you out of my hair for a while."

"Tsunade-sama," Sakura stepped forward and waved the remaining dust away from Grimmjow. "Even though Grimmjow spoke to you, he's not actually better."

"And that's why I keep telling you to take him to a vet," Tsunade said.

"Unless you order us to do so," Sasuke said, not even moving when Grimmjow sneezed against his shirt. "We're fine with keeping things they way they are."

Tsunade snorted. "And I suppose you still don't want the higher ranked in-village missions?"

"As genin it's only right that we take missions that fit our rank. Less chances of us screwing things up," Sakura said pleasantly.

The leather chair creaked as Tsunade leaned back. "Do you think this passive-aggressive protest against the elders will do you any favours in the long run?"

"Protest?" Sakura tilted her head to the side and smiled. "We're just staying and doing missions in the village to reduce chances of failing outside in front of others. After all, what would the other villages think if we fail missions outside Konoha?"

Tsunade smirked and said, "Maybe you should tone down the bullshitting when the elders aren't around?"

"But baa-chan, you're an elder too," Naruto said in a matter-of-fact tone.

With a spike of power, Tsunade rose with a raised fist but paused and rubbed her forehead. "No matter how satisfying it would be to correct your manners, I'm don't want another budget meeting with the council."

Naruto looked up from his hunched over position.

The other two brats opened their eyes and stared between Naruto and Tsunade with cautious confusion.

"Just get out of my sight," Tsunade uncurled her fists and turned to look out the window.

"Ba..." Naruto glanced at his disapproving team-mates and fidgeted. "When is Kakashi-sensei coming back?"

"You know how high-rank missions go." Tsunade said, "I can't tell you when he'll be back."

"Well, whenever he returns, you'll give him a break, right?" Naruto said, completely unfazed by Tsunade's words. "He needs to see the awesome training we've been doing."

"I'll be sure to tell him that his brats missed him." Tsunade turned back to them. "Now get lost."

"I didn't say tha..." Naruto struggled against both his team-mates as they covered his mouth and dragged him out of the room.

"Oi," Tsunade called out. "If there's nothing wrong with you, why are those brats so fixed on staying in the village?"

Grimmjow scoffed. "I don't answer to anyone, especially not a wrinkly old hag like you." Unable to ignore the tug of his proximity seal, Grimmjow bounded out after the brats just in time to hear Naruto whine.

"...ashi-sensei was supposed to be back by now," Naruto said, still struggling against his team mates' hold as they sped through the village via the rooftops.

"Most jounin are out on missions because of Akatsuki and Orochimaru," Sakura said simply. "We're not the only team without their jounin-sensei."

They entered an empty training ground.

As though he hadn't heard her, Naruto continued, "He would have helped us finish our attack combo."

"Obviously. But he's been gone since," Sakura glanced at Sasuke.

Sasuke huffed and unsealed a handful of large fish. "Shut up and get ready."

"You're so bossy. I don't want to work with you," Naruto said. "Grimmjow, let's make an unbeatable combo move together!"

"I'd rather die," Grimmjow sniffed the fish Sasuke had placed in front of him.

"I have this super awesome move that creates a s..."

Grimmjow tuned out Naruto's loud voice and glared at Sasuke. "Why do I have to follow you retards here everyday?"

"You keep the nosey people away," Sasuke said, checking Grimmjow's proximity seal with a swift tap.

"Not if they use Snake-bastard's hiding technique," Grimmjow groused as he grabbed a large black fish.

"Either way, we need to keep up appearances."

"I don't need to do shit," Grimmjow hissed as he gnawed on the fish's thick skin.

"You agreed to our plan," Sasuke said with a pointed look.

Grimmjow snarled, "I _agreed_ to rip Danzo's head off."

"He has to show himself first," Sasuke said. "This is the easiest way to lure him out eventually."

"Which combo attack are we trying out today?" Sakura called out as she stretched in the centre of the training field.

"Go back to killing each other," Grimmjow said. "At least that was fun to watch."

"We'll probably destroy this training field," Sasuke said.

"It's not the same as seeing your blood fly!"

Sasuke sighed and moved away. "I'll get you more fish after we're done."

"Let's try out the..." Naruto yelled.

"You're not in charge!" Sasuke flicked his sword through the air.

"Aren't you going to tell us what we're doing?" Naruto said with an impatient huff.

Sasuke absently rubbed his newly acquired seal. "Let's use the crescent formation to try out attack number five. Sakura get your weapon, I'm changing your role."

Sakura dutifully summoned her pink double-sword staff from the new summoning seal that Naruto had put on her palm that morning.

"And Naruto," Sasuke continued. "You should..."

Not interested in watching their preparation, Grimmjow turned and focused on the human lurking within the thick trees. Even with the muted energy and lack of any noticeable scents, it wasn't hard for Grimmjow to identify the visitor. One of the old hag's office guards.

Realizing that they'd been detected, the lurker left in a whirl of energy. "Hokage's finest guards my ass!" Grimmjow snorted and tore into his fish.

"Understood?" Sasuke asked.

"Yes!" Naruto whined in exasperation as his chakra spiked and flickered visibly over his skin.

Sakura nodded as she spun her weapon with careless ease.

Between one chew and the next, with no discernable signal, they moved.

Sakura smashed the ground with her heel, sending jagged chunks of earth up into the air where two Naruto clones had materialized with long wires that glinted in the sunlight.

Electricity blazed and arced up from Sasuke's sword like a vine, bypassing the clones and Sakura as it stretched out to their unmoving wooden target.

The brats' individual energy levels spiked as they moved, a sure sign that they'd be unleashing some powerful attacks. But as their chakra pooled out and melded into vaguely familiar techniques, their erratic spiritual energy betrayed their hesitation.

Grimmjow grabbed his last fish and jumped up into the trees. He chose a tree that would shield him and provide a good view of the incoming destruction.

Electricity crackled, the earth shuddered and a blazing pillar of noxious smoke rose up to the sky with a deafening bang.

With no incoming energy signatures arriving from the village, Grimmjow wondered if everyone had _finally_ gotten used to the explosions. He swallowed the last of his fish and jumped down.

"Dammit!" Sakura held green glowing hands over the exposed bone that peeked out from charred skin of her legs. "Why do we keep messing up?"

Naruto groaned as he pulled himself out of the ground and dusted off the burnt remnants of his jacket. Skin stretched and filled the numerous bleeding gouges littered on his exposed skin.

A pale blue lighting dome flickered and sunk back down into pale skin. Sasuke coughed wetly and stood shakily with a pained grimace. "Maybe we're just not meant to carry out combined attacks."

"Definitely. This is only a five on the destruction scale." Grimmjow said. He eyed the molten earth lining the deep hole they'd created and squinted, trying to catch a glimpse of the bottom. "Go back to trying to kill each other properly. Watching you retards do this combined attack shit is boring as fuck."

Sakura just huffed. "Don't be annoying, Grimmjow."

"We actually reached five on the destruction scale?" Naruto grinned, absently wiping the blood off his newly healed pink skin.

Grimmjow ignored Naruto and stared at Sakura who was healing the last few patches of her burnt skin. "It's so sad."

Sakura grimaced as she swallowed a multi-coloured mix of pills. "What's so sad?"

"You're just like these two."

"There's nothing sad about that. That's our aim, to be in sync with other and..."

"That's not it. I always wondered why these two didn't peep on you." Grimmjow interrupted impatiently. "Now I understand. You're a _guy_. That's why these two were discussing how flat your chest was."

Naruto and Sasuke froze, their eyes wide and their expressions horrified.

Sakura chuckled. A murderous aura erupted around her as she turned to her team-mates.

Grimmjow congratulated himself on a job well done and jumped up to a higher vantage point to get a good view of the carnage.

As blood spurted up into the air in graceful arcs, Grimmjow berated himself for not using the tactic earlier. It would have certainly saved him from his boredom. But maybe it wouldn't be as satisfying as it was now.

The thick metallic scent of blood heightened his senses. While not as good as actually slaughtering an enemy himself, Grimmjow relished the snap of each broken bone and the squelch of damaged flesh. By the time Sakura finished her violent rampage and left, cruel amusement replaced all of Grimmjow's frustrated anger.

Grimmjow tutted dramatically. "I thought Pinkie was the weakest of you lot. But she broke you two pretty quickly."

"Grimmjow," Sasuke gasped out and glared pathetically as he tried to sit up.

Naruto's skin knitted back together sluggishly as he whined, "You traitor. You made it sound like we didn't like Sakura's chest. It's not even that flat."

"Idiot!" Sasuke yelled.

"We could have died."

"You should have," Grimmjow said. "If you didn't hold back, there would have been more blood before your deaths."

"That's why we held back." Sasuke said, "We need to keep our blood inside to live."

"That's why you'll always remain annoying weak brats." Grimmjow sniffed the wound on Sasuke's chest. "She poisoned you."

Sasuke grunted and drank a dark-tinted liquid.

"She used too little," Grimmjow said in disgust.

Sasuke prodded the wound. "You need to use tiny doses at a time to build a poison immunity."

"That's a stupid method."

"That's the human method," With a look of deep concentration, Sasuke's right hand flickered with a weak green glow. "We don't regenerate as fast as you do. We can't just," he grimaced as the healing green glow fizzled out. He tapped the summoning seal on the inside of his wrist and pulled out a medical kit. "Oi, idiot, you have any chakra pills?"

Naruto huffed. "I only have the basic anitidotes that Sakura-chan gave me. Shouldn't you have a bottle, asshole?"

"I was going to get a new bottle after training," Sasuke said as he tended to his wounds with a foul smelling salve and clean bandages.

"Not even a day since I put them and look at how super useful my summoning seals have become already."

"You didn't invent them."

"No, but my modifications make them better than those ordinary summoning seals!"

"Are you two princesses going to make out or something?" Grimmjow interrupted.

Both boys groaned and complained.

"Then why the fuck are we still here?"

Sasuke's eyes widened with realization. "No, you ca..."

With his tail wrapped around Naruto's arm and his jaws clamped around Sasuke's ankle, Grimmjow sonido-ed out of the training field. After a few sharp turns, he passed through the Uchiha property's new seal barrier and threw his two passengers away when he finally landed in Sasuke's living room.

"That was dangerous!" Sasuke said as he gasped for breath.

"What are you talking about? My teeth didn't even pierce your skin." Grimmjow stretched and jumped onto his pile of pillows.

Sasuke shot him an unimpressed look and shuffled out of the room. The sound of running water filled the house.

"I'm not going to give you a cool new summoning seal," Naruto said as he curled into a ball.

"Why the fuck would I want another seal on me?"

"Infinite supply of fish."

Pushing away the tantalizing mental images that filled his mind, Grimmjow snarled. "The only thing I'd ever want from you is the removal of every fucking seal on me."

"Or you could summon your pillow pile anywhere you want," Naruto said, "instead of having to come back here."

"Naruto." Sasuke came out of his bedroom, heavily bandaged and wearing a fresh change of clothes. "Stop bothering Grimmjow."

"Where are you going?" Naruto asked.

"Need to get dinner for tonight," Sasuke said. "Unless you want to deal with Sakura cooking again."

Naruto puffed up in indignation. "Her cooking isn't so bad."

Sasuke stared at him.

"It isn't," Naruto said weakly. "A little chilli sauce makes everything edible."

"We ran out of chilli sauce last night," Sasuke said.

Naruto frowned. "I bought three bottles the day before yesterday."

"And all three bottles were empty when I threw them out today."

"Do human females get more murderous with people discussing their lack of figure or their horrible cooking skills?" Grimmjow said with malicious amusement.

Naruto gasped in horror. "You wouldn't!"

"What will it take for you to keep quiet?" Sasuke said.

Grimmjow shrugged. "Something that's really fucking nice."

"Fine," Sasuke said in resignation and opened the main door.

"Wait, you can't go off by yourself." A healed and fully clothed Naruto clone materialized beside Sasuke with a grin. "Remember to get some sake too."

A good long while after the main door closed, Grimmjow said, "Why were you so focused on the villagers today?"

"You noticed?" Naruto chuckled sheepishly as rubbed his still healing skin. "It's just... I was interested in their gossip about the elders."

Grimmjow narrowed his eyes. "Oh?"

"Apparently they've been snubbing local businesses to buy goods from foreign merchants. So people are unhappy with them."

"I heard talk about the elders," Grimmjow said. "But no one was saying that today."

Naruto's lips curled into a sly grin. "I'm sure it'll come up eventually."

Connecting the dots, Grimmjow said, "You've spread rumours about the old farts?"

"It might not be as satisfying as being able to punch them in the face." Naruto shrugged. "But this way they'll probably end up being kicked off the Daimyo's council."

"For being unpopular?" Grimmjow asked, unable to hide his curiosity.

"For snubbing the person who owns a lot of those local businesses. The Daimyo's wife."

Grimmjow snorted. "There's no fucking way that just plain old talking can do that much."

"Ero-sennin managed to get a nobleman on one of the islands executed for conspiracy. There was no evidence of the conspiracy, just secretive rumours that reached the right ears." Naruto stretched, his skin completely healed under the drying blood. "So anything's possible."

"Anything?"

Naruto nodded.

"You dumbass!" Grimmjow snarled and thumped his tail against the wall. "Why haven't you tried bringing Orochimaru here?"

"What? That's..."

"You said anything's possible!"

"Just because it's possible doesn't mean it should be done," Naruto said with an uncharacteristic frown. "The only way to get snake-freak's attention is to talk about Sasuke's eyes."

"People already talk about his fucking eyes all the time," Grimmjow pointed out in irritation.

Naruto nodded. "To stand out from the usual talk, I'd have to say his eyes changed because of you."

"Because of me?" Grimmjow emphasized each word with an unimpressed look.

"Kiba and the other Inuzaka have animal senses and stuff from fighting alongside their dogs."

Grimmjow flicked his tail impatiently. "What does that have to do with me?"

Naruto cleared his throat awkwardly. "I thought…since you two have fought together for so long, it wouldn't be too weird to say that Sasuke got something from you. Like a new freaky eye power."

"That sounds retarded," Grimmjow felt inclined to point out. "No one would believe that shit."

"You're a rare cat with strange techniques that no one's seen before and _everyone_ knows that the Uchihas had weird super-secret eye powers back in the day to win wars easily." Naruto shrugged. "It's not too much of a stretch for people to accept. They've believed stranger things."

Grimmjow found himself at a loss for words. Was this the same stupid brat who had called him 'hungry cat' all those years ago in the forest?

"As an added bonus, that story explains why you're both stuck in the village. People would think that Sasuke was getting used his new eye powers thing and learning new techniques. Everything fits together nicely."

Grimmjow stared. The blonde's serious words made a lot more sense than he'd expected.

"I wish my other story was fool proof enough to be used as a rumour. Can you imagine the mayhem if people thought that Sasuke was gathering a harem?"

"Oh thank fuck, you're still a retard. For a second, I thought you actually grew a brain and became smart," Grimmjow said.

Naruto grinned at him. "You think I'm smart?"

"I _thought_ , not think, you retard." Grimmjow said with a huff of impatience and indignation. "Why aren't you luring Orochimaru here if you came up with such a detailed story?"

"It was interesting to make but I never planned to use it." Naruto frowned. "Because people would talk about you. And then you'd get angry and start killing everyone. Sasuke won't stop you cos he hates people gossiping about him. If they don't have you killed, who knows what other seals baa-san and the old farts might put on you and..."

Grimmjow sprang forward and landed beside Naruto's prone form. He leaned forward so that his jaw was in close biting range and growled impatiently. "Who gives a shit about all that? Just get that snake-bastard here."

"But..."

"But nothing. Use that large mouth of yours to bring him here."

"It's sounds disgusting when you say it like that!" Naruto grimaced with real disgust. "Besides, it'll take a while to get any sort of results."

"You have a week to get him here so that I can rip him apart."

"A week? It took two weeks for my rumours about the elders to..."

"A week!" Grimmjow repeated with a hiss, flooding the air with his spiritual energy.

"Sasuke won't like it."

"Well, too fucking bad because no one wants his opinion."

"I'll try," Naruto offered.

"You'd better succeed or there will be consequences!"

The main door opened and Sasuke said, "They didn't have any chilli sa... did you two argue?"

Grimmjow scoffed, gave Naruto a pointed look and went back to his pillow pile on the other side of the room.

"Did he ruin one of your pillows again?" Sasuke asked Grimmjow and frowned at Naruto disapprovingly as he dumped numerous shopping bags on the floor. The Naruto clone entered with another pile of bags.

"I didn't ruin any of his pillows." Naruto huffed. Numerous clones materialized to put the shopping away.

Grimmjow scoffed. "You drooled on my black silk pillow."

"That was an accident. I couldn't help it." Naruto protested. "But that was a nice pillow."

"Yeah, and you fucking ruined it with your toxic drool."

Sasuke sighed. "Enough already. I told you I'd get you another pillow."

"You said I'd get _two_ pillows."

"Yes, right," Sasuke said. "When that merchant comes back."

"So you didn't get me a pillow? When should I tell Sakura about..."

"I got something better," Sasuke said and motioned to the main door. "Can't you hear it?"

Grimmjow's ears twitched. A low growl and the heavy shuffle of clawed feet on stone somewhere close. "I thought I wasn't supposed to kill the endangered tigers in the Forest of Death any more."

"It's a good thing you're not in the Forest of Death then." Sasuke opened the main door. "Don't let it leave the property."

Grimmjow scoffed as he sped out towards the tiger.

"Don't destroy too many things." As the door closed, Sasuke said, "And you, why are you still lying there and stinking up..."

-x-x-x-x-x-

"You seem to be in a good mood," Sasuke said, his eyes narrowed as they walked through the village.

Grimmjow flicked his tail, breathing the fresh morning air. "Am I not allowed to be in a good mood?"

"For five days? No. It's creeping me out." Sasuke frowned. "You're not making a fuss to travel faster by roof."

Grimmjow flexed and purred, intent on making the brat as uncomfortable as possible.

"There's no reason for your good mood." Sasuke groused and rubbed his side. "There's no progress with the seals or Danzo, you haven't grown at all in the past month and..."

"Don't make shit up!"

"After your tail lengthened by a half-inch last month, you haven't grown at all after that."

"How the fuck would you know?" Grimmjow said.

"It's easy to keep track of with my Sharingan."

Grimmjow twitched. "Are you so fucking jobless?"

Sasuke shrugged. "Sakura said I had to keep track of your physical appearance in case you ever needed medical attention."

"I regenerate!"

"Not fast enough sometimes," Sasuke said as they entered an empty alley. "So, why are you like this? We're stuck in the village and Orochimaru is hidden far away."

"If thing's go according to plan, we won't need to go out of the village. He'll come here to get his hands on you, his _precious_ future."

"Don't say it like that." Sasuke shuddered in disgust as they turned into another alley. "What did you do?"

"I didn't have to do a fucking thing."

"You haven't bothered Naruto these past few days!" Sasuke's face twisted with realization. "What did he do?"

"He's the reason Orochimaru will be so fucking excited at the thought of you stuck here with new powers that he'll come here just for you."

"New powers? Don't tell me you..."

"Spread crazy untrue rumours about you?" Grimmjow chuckled with wild mirth. "Sure as fuck did."

Sasuke scoffed, even as his eyes twitched. "You think he'll just walk into the village to get me based on some fucking rumours?"

Grimmjow snorted, amused as always at the rare moments when Sasuke actually cursed. "Don't underestimate his obsession with you."

"He's old," Sasuke said as they walked into the main streets and entered the market. "Maybe his heart will give out from all the exciting thoughts you two supplied him."

"Don't fucking jinx it, you moronic princess."

"He won't fall for something so obvious."

Grimmjow shot him a look. "Are you doubting me, you shit head? Snake-bastard will be definitely be here. And when he does, I'm going to erase his entire existence."

"Sounds like you're the obsessed one," Sasuke muttered as he looked around. "There's too many people in the village these days."

"A monthly cull would control numbers."

Multiple heads turned to stare at them and eyes followed their movement through the market.

Sasuke pinched the bridge of his nose. "You can't say stuff like that out loud."

Grimmjow looked from one watching face to another. "What are they doing?"

"They're staring because of what you said."

"I meant their energy, you retard. Their energy is moving in the same way..."

Every single exploded within seconds of each other, drowning out Grimmjow's words.

People screamed and ran from the market as dark blood, bones and chunks of flesh rained down.

"What the hell?" Sasuke put more power into the pale blue lightning dome that surrounded them.

"Look at the blood," Grimmjow pointed out as the dome vaporized any debris that touched it.

Instead of the large inconsistent splatters, the dark blood had fallen and created numerous familiar patterns.

"Summoning circles? How..."

The circles glowed.

With a burst of energy, the smoke cleared and revealed a host of humans in various stages of monstrous transformation.

Orochimaru's experiments.

Dispersing the lightning dome, Sasuke pulled out his sword. "You really didn't think this through, did you, Grimmjow?"


	14. Uncanny Consequences

"How did they manage this?" Sasuke said as he killed two of Orochimaru's experiments with a long sweep of his sword.

Grimmjow swatted a transformed man into a building with a lazy flick of his tail and gouged another's throat out with a satisfying spray of blood. "Who cares?"

"They must have had inside help,"

"You think I helped?"

"Of course not! I meant Danzo," Sasuke said.

"Makes sense." Grimmjow raked his claws down a man's torso, dragging out bloody entrails with a satisfying plop.

"No, it doesn't!" Sasuke sliced his sword in a wide arc, beheading a scale-skinned man and slicing through the torso of another. "He put a seal on me to keep in the village and out of Orochimaru's grasp and now he's helping Orochimaru reach me. How does that make sense?"

"Maybe he wants to destroy the village," Grimmjow supplied hopefully as he crushed a skull under his paws.

"Don't sound so happy when you say things like that in public," Sasuke said. "People will report you to the higher ups."

"No one's paying attention to me now. They're more worried about dying," Grimmjow said with a disgusted scoff, eyeing the screaming civilians in the distance. "But you have to admit, this is the best kidnapping attempt on your lame ass so far."

"I'd prefer it if no one was trying to kidnap me," Sasuke said, as a trio of mutated men fell in a spray of red from their multitude of cuts. Heedless of the blood dripping down his hands, Sasuke stabbed an incoming attacker through a gaping maw filled with rows of pointed teeth. "In fact, I wish it would stop."

"No chance of that. You've caused _two_ invasions," Grimmjow said with glee as he twisted someone's head off with his spiked tail. He'd never been able to do that before. Thrilled with the physical proof of his increased strength, Grimmjow laughed. "Maybe you'll create an actual war at your next kidnapping."

Sasuke let out a mix of a curse and a growl that added to Grimmjow's amusement.

"Why are you two acting so laid-back?" A female voice yelled from above as a group of Orochimaru's experiments crashed around them in a cacophony of snapping bones.

"Sakura," Sasuke greeted his team-mate with a tired sigh as she landed beside them. "Why aren't you at the hospital?"

Sakura glared at him as she unleashed a wave of exploding tags from her monstrous pink weapon. The thick storm of explosions decimated every attacker in their vicinity. "I got permission from Tsunade ages ago to guard you if something like this happened. Someone has to make sure you won't get kidnapped. "

The diseased and rotting souls, a common sight after killing Orochimaru's experiments, wailed at an annoying pitch as they dissipated into nothingness.

"I can take care of myself," Sasuke said.

Sakura shot his side- the one that was marked with Danzo's seal- a pointed look.

Sasuke's Sharingan blazed at her silent reminder but he said, "I'm not alone."

"Grimmjow's probably hoping you get kidnapped so he can fight Orochimaru," Sakura said with a huff.

"What's wrong with wanting that?" Grimmjow asked.

Sakura opened her mouth to reply, but a blur of blinding orange landed beside them and gasped out. "Sorry I'm late!"

"Sasuke hasn't been kidnapped yet," Grimmjow informed the blond.

"I'm not getting kidnapped," Sasuke groused out in annoyance.

Naruto ignored him and looked around as the open cuts on his knuckles healed. "I didn't think those rumours would work so fast to cause this." He winced as both Sakura and Sasuke hit him upside the head. "What? This wasn't supposed to happen."

"If I have to pull extra shifts at the hospital because of... whatever you did, I'm going to shatter every single bone in your body," Sakura said, her voice low with the promise of pain as explosions went off in the distance.

"I didn't know snake-bastard would be this desperate," Naruto whined.

Grimmjow didn't bother to hide his smugness. "I knew."

Sasuke tensed, head lowering and hands twitching to his side. "The seal." Without preamble, he raised his shirt and narrowed his eyes at the unmarked skin.

"About fucking time you got rid of that!" Grimmjow crowed in delight. Things were finally going his way. "This makes things easier."

"I didn't remove it," Sasuke hissed as he prodded his side, his Sharingan spinning.

"Then what?" Grimmjow said. "It reached it's expiration date and vanished on it's own?"

No one appreciated his wittiness.

Naruto bent down for a closer look. "Someone unravelled the other end of this seal connection. How's your chakra?"

A green-glowing hand covered Sasuke's skin before he could answer. "Nothing," Sakura said with a frown. "No trace of it and no lingering damage."

An instant after Grimmjow's senses registered an interloper, a familiar grating voice cut through their impromptu huddle. "I should hope so. Orochimaru-sama has no use for damaged goods."

The silver-grey hair and the smug expression under round glasses tugged at Grimmjow's memory. "You're like Aizen and Gin's bastard love-child! Why didn't I see that before? It makes so much sense."

Kabuto tilted his head and smiled. "I'm glad I remind you of someone you know so intimately, Grimmjow-san."

"Intimately?" Grimmjow scoffed and sniffed hard to confirm the faint scent of ink coming off of Kabuto. "You're as fucked-up as ever, lapdog. Always saying strange crap and doing even stranger crap. Like removing Sasuke's seal."

The three brats didn't react to that revelation physically. But their energy buzzed with anger and heady blood-lust.

"Doesn't that make things more interesting? The more unpredictable I am, the more interested you'll be," Kabuto said, his smile widening.

Naruto made a pained sound. "That's totally a pick-up line. I heard Ero-sennin use something like that once. He got slapped around for it but still."

"Makes sense," Sasuke said as he straightened his shirt. "Of course the freak would have the hots for animals."

Voice low and thoughtful, Sakura said, "Hey, doesn't this make Grimmjow another princess on our team? Since we're protecting him from a creepy person who might do _things_ to him."

Even as a new wave of explosions rocked the village, they all took a moment to pause and process that thought.

Sasuke groaned.

Grimmjow snarled. "Don't say disgusting shit like that out loud. I should have killed you brats in the forest."

"I can't believe I have to protect _three_ princesses now," Sakura said with a solemn shake of her head, not sounding the least bit remorseful at the chaos she created. "As if I didn't have enough work already."

Naruto huffed with discontent. "I don't see why I'm a princess in the first place."

But Kabuto chuckled. "Are you implying that you three would try to stop me from taking Grimmjow-san?"

Sakura mirrored Kabuto's placid smile but her green eyes promised death. "I'm telling you, I'll rip you apart if you touch anyone from my team."

Kabuto laughed with unmistakable amusement. He pushed his glasses up and smirked. "Harmless little kittens shouldn't be picking fights with dragons."

"Delusional creep," Sakura pointed one bladed end of her pink weapon at Kabuto. "Your info is outdated."

Sasuke stretched into a ready posture. "Maybe he was too busy fantasizing about what he'd do to Grimmjow to keep track of us."

Naruto laughed, his blue eyes glowing with anticipation. "But the three of us fighting him is kinda overkill, even if we are protecting Grimmjow's virtue!"

"I hope you all die painfully," Grimmjow snarled, stretching the range of his Pesquisa to find his target amidst all the battling energy signatures.

Looking away from them, Kabuto said, "You can't dangle a key in front of us and expect us not to use it." Kabuto punctuated his strange words by stomping the ground. As energy filled ink splattered against his foot, he shrugged at them. "Konoha's old men are still very predictable."

Not missing a beat, Naruto sighed. "Now, I almost feel bad for you. Konoha's old men must have kept you very _busy_."

Sakura added in a faux-sympathetic voice. "It would explain why he's completely off humans and moved on to animals."

"A cycle of creepiness," Naruto said solemnly.

Sasuke sighed and muttered under his breath. "Why do our conversations end up like this?"

Though his energy buzzed, Kabuto's smile didn't falter and he continued as though he hadn't been interrupted. "But I suppose I should be thankful for their interference. After making Sasuke-kun's seal removal so much easier than planned, I have an even better understanding of how to free you from all the seals keeping you here, Grimmjow-san."

"You're very talkative today, lapdog," Grimmjow said.

"How else would I be able to offer you your freedom, Grimmjow-san?"

As always, guilt coloured the brats' eyes when the subject of his seals came up. But now there was also a resigned acceptance in their sudden silence. Like they thought he'd accept a deal with Orochimaru's lapdog to be freed from them and they were perfectly _okay_ with that.

Expected it, even.

"You're annoying," Grimmjow snarled, unsure who he was talking to. Luckily, he didn't have to think about it because his Pesquisa registered a familiar energy. "Orochimaru!"

As he leapt up into the smoke filled air, the proximity seal tying him to Sasuke expanded, a clear sign that he could go as far as he needed to.

With thick black smoke making visibility over the village non-existent, Grimmjow could only depend on his Pesquisa to lead him to Orochimaru. But every raging battle he had to pass, every vibrant Konoha soul he couldn't stop to eat, everything fuelled Grimmjow's blood-lust and pushed him forward.

Nothing else mattered as he raced through the air and finally landed in front of Orochimaru.

Under a sickly shroud of spiritual energy, Orochimaru's sallow skin showed dark webs of blood vessels.

Grimmjow had spent enough time around Sakura to know the tell-tale signs of human infirmity. "How _dare_ you become so weak?"

Orochimaru chuckled as he threw a pair of masked men into the waiting mouth of a snake. "Jungle cat, you're as persistent as ever."

"You're one to talk," Grimmjow retorted. "Which Sasuke kidnapping attempt number is this?"

"To think that the Sharingan can tame such a bloodthirsty beast," Orochimaru said, his gold eyes appraising Grimmjow. "I can't wait to get those eyes."

With a cero blast to obliterate the large snake in his way, Grimmjow sonidoed forward with his claws ready.

Orochimaru stretched, twisted his body away from the attack and unleashed a trio of bright snakes from his sleeves right at Grimmjow's eyes.

Grimmjow sonidoed away from the attack to land behind Orochimaru and unleashed a weak cero just before he clamped down on charred flesh.

The soft and sickly flesh deflated like a balloon without air.

Grimmjow spat out the empty casing of human skin just as an uninjured Orochimaru slammed a snake covered sword down on Grimmjow's back. His armour deflected both the sword and snakes but their corrosive poison sank down in between the armour plates.

The cold burn of the poison provided a sharp contrast to the sudden rise in temperature around him.

"Looks like I'll have to slice you up until you can't regenerate," Grimmjow laughed as he sonidoed away from a gigantic fireball. Needing more speed, Grimmjow redirected the spiritual energy from healing the distracting sizzle of poison into augmenting his movement.

Orochimaru's hands slammed onto the ground and a large summoning circle unleashed a tidal wave of snakes brandishing blades from their mouths.

A tidal wave that surrounded Grimmjow from all sides and hid Orochimaru away.

The world blurred as Grimmjow sonidoed up into the air, high above the twisting snakes and stepped right into a thick cloud of poison.

The frantic rush of regenerative energy couldn't quell the poison's burn fast enough. But Grimmjow pushed past the pain and shot an overpowered cero ball down.

The cero's hungry explosion created a hole in the wave that instantly refilled with more snakes.

But the cero had done it's main job.

It had given him Orochimaru's location.

Grimmjow dived down into the churning mass of snakes, using his teeth, claws and even his spiked tail to rip and tear away scaled flesh.

More poison seeped into his body, it's burn making Grimmjow's blood-thirst grow even as it drained away his energy for much needed regeneration and healing.

His regeneration wasn't suited for use in battle. It was something to be used after he won and had the time to heal without interruption.

But the amount of healing he needed in this battle frustrated him.

Why was he the one having problems? Shouldn't Orochimaru be the one getting weaker?

Grimmjow shook away his thoughts and jumped forward. "I'm stronger than you."

Though he wanted to believe that, Grimmjow knew he had a disadvantage in his current form. His sonido would have been so much faster, even if just by a millisecond, if he wasn't stuck in this four-legged form.

Or maybe that was just his desperation talking.

How long had he been fighting?

It felt too long.

Especially since his energy was flagging with all his desperate healing he'd had had to do. Which in turn seemed to make the seals on his back react strangely.

Taking advantage of his distraction, a snake with damage-resistant white scales gripped his neck in a choke hold and lifted him up in front of a pale but smug Orochimaru.

"To think that my most persistent opponent would be a _cat_ ," Orochimaru said, his skin much paler than before. "Tell me. When I take on Sasuke-kun's form, will you obey and follow me just like you followed after him?"

Grimmjow narrowed his eyes in disgust. How dare this snake bastard say that he followed Sasuke? If anything, Sasuke was the one that followed him.

"Ah, loyal to the very end," Orochimaru said with a touch of disappointed amusement. "Such a shame."

Rage burst across Grimmjow's flesh. Grimmjow didn't want to lose. Not here, and certainly not to this idiotic excuse of a man.

His spiritual energy spiked with desperation to escape his captor's hold.

To survive.

To win.

A blue haze surrounded him as every last bit of his energy exploded outwards with an audible shock wave.

The grip around his neck disappeared but the ensuing emptiness in his body sparked a wave of bone grinding pain.

When the pain finally stopped, Grimmjow opened his eyes.

Through the thick dust and smoke in the air, a deep crater littered with chunks of pale flesh, blood and crackling blue energy stretched out around him.

"Grimmjow, damn it, of all times for you to make me track you through this damn seal and..." Sakura landed in front of him, deactivated the seal on her arm and waved away the smoke only to stare up at him with wide unbelieving eyes. "Grimmjow?"

Long blue strands fell across his eyes as Grimmjow glanced down at her.

Hit by a sudden realization, Grimmjow looked down further.

Two white-armoured humanoid legs that ended with sleek black paws came down from his torso. A torso that was human shaped and covered with blue fur but still had no hollow hole.

Startled at the sight, his hands came forward and Grimmjow couldn't help but stare at the fact that he actually had hands.

Hands that could squeeze throats and grip weapons.

Hands that were also covered in elbow-length interlocking white plates.

With a instinctive flex, hidden spikes emerged from the underside of his arm with a click. Another flex retracted the spikes but his fingers lengthened in to sharp black claws.

"I did it?" Grimmjow laughed in disbelief, as he whipped his much longer tail through the air behind him. "I did it!" He revelled at standing upright on two legs once again. And even though he had no spiritual energy at that moment, Grimmjow felt strong. Strong enough to do anything. "So this is a Vasto Lorde."

A confused and panicked voice interrupted his celebration. "Grimmjow?"

Grimmjow looked up and twitched. During his examination, all three brats had surrounded him and were currently staring at him in various degrees of shock and confusion.

"Grimmjow?" Naruto said.

Taking in the strange new feel of Naruto' potent spiritual energy, Grimmjow scoffed. "What the fuck happened to you?"

Naruto blinked.

Sasuke rubbed his forehead. "Idiots."

"Is this the time to be bothered about me?" Naruto exclaimed, "You're, you look..."

Grimmjow grinned. "Awe-inspiring?"

"Creepy." Naruto finished. "Not Kabuto creepy or anything just..."

"Weird." Sasuke added.

Sakura nodded. "It's an impossible sort of weird. An animal changing to, whatever this is," she made all encompassing motion at Grimmjow. "What the hell happened?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Grimmjow grinned, and reached for his miniscule spiritual energy. "What the fuck..." he wanted to say more, but his breath caught. His chest tightened as something old and familiar squeezed his lungs.

All three brats jumped at him with wide-eyed panic.

"Stupid brats..." Grimmjow vaguely felt Sasuke's hand grabbing his arm, but the foreign sensation that had invaded his body acted up. His vision blurred and something pulled him away forcefully.

Before he could do anything, he fell for what felt like ages as a familiar maddening hunger filled his body. A hunger that he hadn't felt since Hueco Mundo.

Bitter cold prickled his skin and seeped down into his bones as he finally crashed onto an unforgiving surface.

"So, you finally became a Vasto Lorde?" A soft voice said in open amusement. "You came back a lot later than I planned, but I'll just have to make that work in my favour."

"No!" Grimmjow looked up into calculating brown eyes and growled. "Why the fuck are you..."

"Welcome back, Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez," Aizen greeted him with a smile.


	15. Critical Connections

"Aizen! You bastard," Grimmjow raised a clawed hand and slashed down viciously.

Aizen reappeared a few feet away from the attack and flared his spiritual energy with amusement . "It seems you have forgotten your place during the last five years."

Grimmjow resisted the crushing pressure, barred his teeth in angry defiance and sonidoed beside Aizen. "Can't count any more? I've only been away from this shit hole for three years."

"Away from here?" Aizen chuckled and ducked away from Grimmjow's attack. "I didn't think you'd fall for my illusionary world so easily, Grimmjow. I suppose you couldn't help it. The five years must have made everything feel real for you."

Grimmjow couldn't help it. He faltered at the thought of the past few years are nothing more than Aizen's illusions. Illusions that he had fallen for. He swung his claws wildly, "Shut up."

"Are you upset it wasn't real?" Aizen laughed and his words dripped with derision. "Don't tell me you liked it. That you found a _place to belong_."

Grimmjow slammed a leg at Aizen's knee even as he slashed his clawed hands down.

"How naive." Aizen said with a smirk as he deflected the attacks, "Creatures like you should know better."

"Shut up!" Grimmjow snarled. Things didn't make a whole lot of sense at that moment, but Grimmjow knew one thing for certain. "Without your precious Hōgyoku, you're nothing!"

Aizen smiled placidly but his brown eyes were hard to read as he countered Grimmjow's hits and trapped him mid-attack. "As usual, you assume you know everything when you are so ignorant of new developments."

Before Grimmjow could retort or free himself to attack Aizen again, sharp burning chains engulfed his torso and locked down his spiritual energy.

"The first thing you need to know," Aizen flared his spiritual energy up much higher than before. The new intent pressure pushed Grimmjow down to his knees. "I have an even lower tolerance for insolence now." Aizen motioned to Grimmjow's sides with a deliberate smile.

Grimmjow glanced to the side before he could stop himself.

Two tall beings clad in grey billowing cloaks and bandaged heads stood on either side of Grimmjow but exuded no energy that Grimmjow could sense. Their lifeless eyes were trained on Aizen but their clawed hands held the rattling chains attached to Grimmjow.

"Bind him," Aizen said.

With a flick of their hands, the chains turned red and burned their way down through his skin with a sickening sizzle.

He snarled in anger as his spiritual energy disappeared beyond his reach in a blaze of pain.

"Wonderful, aren't they?" Aizen said with a pleasant tone, the one he usually used when drinking tea and plotting. "It took a long time for me to free and empower my select Togabito with the powers of a hell guardian. Those Kushanada certainly didn't make things easy for me at any stage," he said as though they were in the wrong for not being cooperative. "But my work gave me something much better than a regular Kushanada."

The terms weren't familiar to Grimmjow but the casual mention of 'hell' told him where Aizen had set up his new base.

"It took even longer to make sure that they'd have no will power to go against me with their new augmentations," Aizen smiled and patted one of the beings with something like fondness. "They came out rather nicely, don't you think? Their unique hell spiritual energy and powers are really useful."

The red chains lengthened and wrapped around Grimmjow, binding him even tighter.

"What do you want?" Grimmjow hissed, unable to move without making the chains cause even more pain. "If you have these stupid hell rejects, why bother me, you shithead?"

Aizen tilted his head and said, "A Vasto Lorde Arrancar with hell guardian's powers would be quite _interesting_."

"I won't..."

As more grey clad beings appeared around them, Aizen laughed and reached for Grimmjow's head, "You assume you _have_ a choice."

More specifically, he reached for the mask on Grimmjow's head. A mask that Grimmjow still hadn't had the chance to see for himself. Despite the pain it brought, Grimmjow struggled away from the hand.

"You've never had a choice, Grimmjow, and you never will." Aizen pulled.

Grimmjow's mask cracked and disintegrated just like the last time he'd gone through the process. But this time,without the Hōgyoku's controlling energy present, the burning pain that racked Grimmjow's body was unlike anything that he'd ever felt before.

The only thing that distracted him from the pain was a faint fluttering of energy at a specific point on his spine.

A point that shouldn't have existed if everything had been Aizen's illusion. Because that point felt a lot like one of the seals that the old hag had used to bind him to those shitty brats.

"You're," Grimmjow forced his eyes open and stared straight at Aizen as the seal on his back flared with warm potent energy, "ignorant too."

Aizen's smile shifted into real amusement.

"You're not the only one," Grimmjow hated the tremors in his voice but continued, "who's got new shit."

Energy spiralled outwards and exploded behind him. With it came a burst of scents. Scents that were so full of life and had no place in the cold emptiness of Hueco Mundo.

Grimmjow relished the realization that it hadn't been an illusion at all. "You damn brats!" He groused through the pain. "The fuck took so long?"

Three annoying but easily recognizable voices yelled something back as the two chain wielding freaks disintegrated in a haze of red but Grimmjow didn't pay attention.

He couldn't.

Freed from the red chains, Grimmjow's energy surged up and the painful transformation shifted. Warm and bright energy mingled with his own making everything a bit of blur to him.

When his body eventually settled, Grimmjow held a sharp sword that gleamed blue and hummed with power.

A sword that cut through incoming red chains like they were paper.

Thrilled at his new found power, Grimmjow pushed himself up with a feral laugh and lunged forward as large red skeletal gates in the air unleashed more of Aizen's bland chain wielders.

An impatient swipe of his blade beheaded a minion that got in Grimmjow's way as he searched for Aizen.

But for every minion he killed, three more appeared to take it's place making it hard to move forward.

And then as though the place wasn't crowded enough, Hollows surged to the battlefield with hungry screeches. Some aimed for Aizen's hell creatures and others headed to the only human souls in the area that reeked of living power.

Power that sky-rocketed in three different locations with an audible shock wave that made Grimmjow pause mid-battle to look at what the brats were doing.

Though the howling red winds that sliced everything in it's path and the torrents of pink petals that mummified bodies before exploding were interesting, it was the large feline prowling the battlefield that really caught Grimmjow's attention.

The feline, completely composed of crackling lightning, pounced on opponents and fried them in a matter of seconds.

Grimmjow knew it was stupid to stop and stare at something in the middle of a battle, but he couldn't help it. Not when that something was a perfect replica of his Adjuchas form.

With it's back covered in exploding pink petals and the wind accompanying it, the lightning cat thinned out the battling hordes with ease.

"A combo move," Grimmjow said to himself in fascination. But then the thought of those three brats having a higher kill count than him spurred Grimmjow forward into action again.

Spirit particles glittered as the dead disintegrated from all around the empty landscape.

"Where did that brown haired asshole go?" Naruto called out in confusion, his voice deep but still holding that annoying lilt that was so uniquely him. "Wasn't he the one in charge?"

With a light and amused voice, Sakura said, "It looks like he pulled an 'Orochimaru' and escaped without us noticing."

"Don't jinx us," Sasuke's sombre voice said, "Did you get him, Grimmjow?"

"Would I be standing here so pissed if I did? To think that Aizen would actually run off," Grimmjow paused as he finally caught sight of the three brats. "What the fuck happened to you three?"

Naruto, taller than Grimmjow by a head and clad in a long flame patterned red coat, pointed at him dramatically. "Us? What the heck happened to you? You look... different." Naruto concluded with a more subdued voice as he scratched at the thick black lines on his cheeks.

Grimmjow blinked and looked down at his pale and unmarked human-like skin. Annoyed at the lack of any bone white armour, Grimmjow glanced up again. "Seriously, what the fuck happened to you three?"

Sakura sighed, making her long pink ponytail twitch like a tail before it settled on her red and green outfit that glinted as though it was more metal than cloth. Beneath a fringe of her pink hair, a white diamond gleamed on her forehead. "We grew up."

"In less than an hour?" Grimmjow said in disbelief.

As Sasuke sheathed his sword, his dark blue kimono jacket rustled, showing intricate designs threaded in purple. Purple that matched Sasuke's eyes, concentric rings and all. "You disappeared almost a year ago, Grimmjow."

Grimmjow stilled as Aizen's ramblings replayed in his head. Five years, Aizen had said. But Grimmjow had only spent three years with the brats.

"What?" Sakura said with something like concern.

"How come your boobs haven't grown at all?" Grimmjow stared pointedly at her chest.

Sasuke and Naruto both shuffled away from him in horror.

Sakura just rolled her eyes. "Fuck off, stupid cat. But since we're on the subject, where are your pants?"

Grimmjow stared at her. "Aren't you a healer? Nakedness shouldn't be a fucking issue with you."

Naruto grinned as he unrolled a scroll and opened a seal on it. "Lucky for everyone that I actually packed an extra set of clothes."

As though Naruto hadn't said anything, Sakura continued, "You were our cat! Our cat! I'm allowed to have issues with you being naked in front of me right now."

"I wasn't your cat!" Grimmjow yelled, catching the clothes that Naruto had threw at him. He took the black pants but threw the orange shirt.

Sasuke he held out his own long kimono jacket to Grimmjow, revealing a black shirt with metal mesh sleeves over inked skin. "Yes, Sakura. There wasn't any joint custody."

"He stayed with me," Sakura pointed out.

"What is a mere month to the years he spent at my place?" Sasuke said, with a tone that suggested that he had won the argument.

With his orange shirt in hand, Naruto said, "You know, if I hadn't been travelling, then he would have stayed with me."

Grimmjow ignored the brats' banter, more intrigued by the multiple spiritual energies headed to their location. Grimmjow flared his spiritual energy out as a warning, a declaration that he was there.

"Grimmjow?"

Of the incoming spiritual energies, the strongest flared back without a hint of aggression and within seconds, four white clad figures appeared in the distance.

A familiar dark-skinned blonde led the small group forward without any drawn weapons.

Even so, Grimmjow kept his spiritual energy up and ready.

The brats behind him didn't move but their energy had a coiled tension of readiness about them.

"Willingly in the company of humans, Grimmjow?" Harribel greeted when she stopped a fair distance away from him, her sharp green eyes lingering on the three brats behind him. Unlike before, she had her hollow mask, the one that covered her mouth and reached down to her chest, exposed. "How odd, especially for you."

"Did I ask for your opinion, bitch?" Grimmjow said, wanting the unflappable form of the Third Espada to draw her sword. Wanting to see what she could do, especially since he could smell traces of a recent battle on her.

The three female Fracción behind Harribel drew their weapons and snarled at him, but Harribel stopped them with a side-long look. "There is no reason for the two of us to fight," Harribel said, her words slow and considering. "Unless you wish to challenge me to the right to rule."

Grimmjow smirked at her. "You've become King?"

Harribel nodded curtly, the thick lines of golden yellow on her hollow mask glinting with in the moonlight. "Until you showed up today, I was the only Espada left. I took the throne and became _Queen_."

The three brats behind him tensed at the words.

"So they're all dead?" Grimmjow was shocked. Even though he hated to acknowledge it, some of the Espada had been stronger than him. Strong enough that he'd wanted to kill them himself. "That's actually pathetic."

"Aizen betrayed us," Harribel said.

Grimmjow snorted. "And you didn't expect that? He wasn't one of us! Of course, he'd betray us."

"Hindsight makes that clear," Harribel said. "What isn't clear to me is how you're here. I did a thorough search for any surviving Espada at the end of the war five years ago. The princess was even willing to resurrect and restore anyone I found as part of our truce."

Grimmjow stared at her, unwilling to tell her anything of importance.

"You weren't here, Grimmjow," Harribel said with surety. "There wasn't even an ounce of your reiatsu here. Where have you been?"

"The fuck does it matter?"

"It matters. There might be other Espada who shared your fate."

Grimmjow still wasn't inclined to talk about the past three years of his life.

Harribel sighed. "I suppose that's too hopeful of me. I know how the rest of the Espada met their fates. You were the only unconfirmed death out of the group." Harribel pulled a bright blue container, shook out a white pill and tossed it to Grimmjow. "Take it. It will remove every trace of Aizen's persistent reiatsu that Szayel might have hidden away in your body."

"So it was Szayel who fucked me over," Grimmjow stared at the pill suspiciously.

"Yes, there was a more sinister purpose for our constant check-ups," Harribel said

Grimmjow rolled his eyes. "Tell me something I didn't already know, you annoying bitch."

Instead of being annoyed like he'd expected, Harribel's eyes crinkled with something like amusement. It was not an expression he'd expected to see her ever use when talking to him. "That pill was developed by one of our Shinigami allies after Aizen escaped captivity and obtained the destructive powers from the Hell dimension. It's completely reliable, I assure you. I took the first pill myself to ensure it's safety for consumption by other Arrancar. I suggest you take it," Harribel said. "It would be tiresome, if Aizen managed to take over your new evolved body."

Grimmjow gave her a look, clearly not willing to believe her bullshit.

"He almost got a hold of me due to the reiatsu he had hidden away in me," Harribel offered. "If the humans had not intervened, I would have lost everything."

"Why would they bother to help?"

"Much has changed in the past five years, Grimmjow. The Shinigami are willing to work with any allies to stop him for good this time," Harribel said. "Apparently when Hell gets involved, suddenly we're not that bad to work with."

"His reach has grown," Grimmjow said.

"No," Harribel said simply. "It's probably that we're only finding out the true extent of his reach. We were just a step to his true end."

Grimmjow grit his teeth. "What's that?"

"It seems he wasn't being metaphorical when he talked about becoming god."

"Who'd actually believe that?" Grimmjow said with disbelief.

"Nobody did," Harribel did. "Not even the Shinigami. I suppose that's why he managed to do all the things he do." She looked straight at him. "We are planning to deal with him soon. An experienced fighter would be helpful."

Grimmjow snorted. "Are you asking me to stay here and fight?"

"Aizen has been launching simultaneous attacks in different locations. Sometimes it's twice a day, sometimes more as he tries to get subjects for his experimentation. It gets... tiring." When he didn't reply, she said, "Don't you want to be there when Aizen is defeated once and for all? When that man is reduced to a useless worm grovelling for mercy?"

An enticing thought. An entirely too enticing thought especially after all the shit Aizen had put him through. To defeat Aizen with his own hands would be perfect.

Instead of answering, Grimmjow popped the pill in his mouth, grimacing at the rush of warm spirit particles that raced deep into his body. In the next instant, Aizen's distinct energy rose to his skin and dissipated into the air as spirit particles. "Fuck. How did the bastard manage that?"

"Aizen's _gifts_ were embedded so deep that we would never have any hope of removing it ourselves," Harribel said. "Who knows what he had initially planned to use them for?"

"Ah," Sakura interrupted. "Can we get another one of those pills?"

"Know your place, human," one of Harribel's more annoying Fracción said even as Grimmjow glanced back in annoyance.

"My apologies, your highness," Sakura said, her eyes fixed on Harribel, "Would it be too much trouble to get another one of those pills?"

Before Harribel could answer, Grimmjow snarled. "Why the fuck do you want that?"

"You see," Sakura hesitated before she continued, "Orochimaru is sort of alive..."

Grimmjow narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean _sort of alive_? I kicked his ass."

Sakura glanced at Sasuke.

Sasuke huffed but pulled down the collar of his black shirt, showing a Orochimaru's black mark surrounded by a multiple thick rings of seals.

"That doesn't mean anything," Grimmjow said, even as he realized that he hadn't seen Orochimaru's soul. Things had gone by really fast when he had evolved and he hadn't searched for Orochimaru's soul. "Don't..."

A pill flew through the air towards Sakura, who caught it with ease.

Grimmjow turned back to Harribel and focussed his spiritual pressure forward enough to make her three Fracción gasp and fall to their knees.

Harribel just hummed, unconcerned and as calm as ever while she pocketed the blue bottle. "Do you want the throne, Grimmjow?"

"A throne to rule over what?" Grimmjow huffed as he pulled back his spiritual energy. "Besides, defeating you wouldn't even be a challenge."

Even though her Fracción looked eager to attack him again, Harribel stared at him for a long moment. "It seems you've obtained the true prize of our constant evolution, Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez. You've pushed away your emptiness."

Grimmjow scoffed. "We evolve to grow stronger."

"Don't you feel stronger without the emptiness?"

"Shut up! I'm a Vasto Lorde... Arrancar now."

Harribel nodded at him condescendingly. "Sure you are."

"What's that supposed to mean, you damn bitch?"

"You don't even realize it, do you?" Harribel said.

"Realize what?" Grimmjow snarled.

Harribel pointedly glanced down at his chest. "Where is it? Your hollow hole."

Grimmjow glanced down with a frown and stilled. How had he missed it's absence on his new skin. "It was here," he said and pulled the kimono jacket away to check his back. He was sure he had his hollow hole before Aizen had broken his mask. Grimmjow rubbed his jaw, searching for remnants of his hollow mask. But his fingers only met smooth skin.

"How does it feel Grimmjow? To be the first to evolve into something other than a hollow?" Taking a long look at him and the brats behind him, Harribel turned away without a care, "I will wait for your final decision, whatever that may be."

Grimmjow scoffed but let her walk away without any further comment.

"She's so dignified," Sakura said, her eyes fixed on Harribel's retreating form. "No wonder she's the Queen."

"Figures." Grimmjow shook his head in disgust. "Harribel always had a weird effect on women."

Sasuke shot him a disbelieving look.

"Your sister is so cool," Naruto said, looking as though he had been bursting to say that.

Grimmjow twitched. "Sist… what the fuck?"

Naruto just shot him an oddly sympathetic look. "She's the last of your family, right?"

It took a moment for Grimmjow to follow Naruto's line of thought. And then he felt horrified that he could actually follow the boy's ridiculous thought process."Are you talking about being Espada?"

"Espada," Naruto said the word carefully, but still pronounced it atrociously, and grinned. "Your language sounds so awe..."

Thankfully, Sasuke smacked Naruto upside the head. "Shut up and set up the seal so that we can all go home."

Grimmjow stilled. Home. He glanced out at the familiar dull white sands of Hueco Mundo that gleamed under the never-changing moonlight. Even the cold breeze biting at his skin felt achingly familiar.

"Grimmjow?" Sasuke said, his voice cautious as he came and stood beside Grimmjow.

Grimmjow rolled his eyes as all three brats concentrated on him with unsure eyes. He huffed and walked forward. "That seal better not explode."

"Don't worry, I made it," Naruto said with a wide grin.

Grimmjow paused. "You made the seal?"

Naruto grinned. "Of course! I learned loads of cool things because of the war."

"War?" Grimmjow frowned. "What war?"

"The Fourth Shinobi War."

"The fou..." Grimmjow shook his head in disbelief. "You mean like one of those wars that make history."

"Yes," Sakura said.

"I missed it?"

All three brats shrugged.

"Fucking Aizen, always ruining everything."

"It was actually kind of..." Naruto looked at the other two.

"Dull?" Sakura said. Then she nodded. "Yes, it was dull. You wouldn't have liked it."

Grimmjow glanced at Sasuke, wanting to hear the truth.

Sasuke just shrugged. "You really wouldn't have liked it."

Grimmjow narrowed his eyes in question.

"There was more sealing going on than killing."

Grimmjow gagged, his dislike for seals rearing it's head. "What the hell kind of lame-ass war was that?"

"An annoying one," Sasuke said, trying to end the conversation.

But Naruto didn't shut up. "It's not like you could kill all those resurrected people. They wouldn't die. You could keep fighting but..."

Grimmjow blinked. "Wouldn't die?"

Sasuke sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"You fought enemies that wouldn't die?"

Naruto nodded.

Sasuke smacked the back of Naruto's head. "Idiot."

Before anyone could explain, Grimmjow took a deep breath and said, "Whatever, it can't be too hard to start another one. It would be nice to start the Sixth shinobi war."

"What happened to the Fifth one?" Sasuke asked cautiously.

"Who knows what has happened in the two years you'll have been gone..."

All three brats blinked and repeated. "Two years?"

Sakura gulped. "That's right, you said you just got here even though for us, you were gone for a year. By the time we go back, it might be two years have passed for the three of us."

"If the time change works like that," Grimmjow said nonchalantly. "It might be longer."

"No way!" Naruto said and his face twisted in panic and worry. "What if Orochimaru managed to..."

Grimmjow chuckled. "That would be the perfect thing to return to."

"There's nothing perfect about that!" Sakura yelled.

Grimmjow looked down at his new sword and grinned. "I'm getting excited just thinking about cutting him up. And doing that in the middle of a war would be even better."

"Maybe we won't have any time difference like Grimmjow did. We set the seal up at Mount Myōboku and it's set up to reverse summon us, so we might not have the time problem, right?" Sakura said, looking at Naruto with hopeful eyes.

Grimmjow ignored her words and said, "I'll have to try and keep the fight going as long as possible to make it a little challenging."

"I don't know!" Naruto said. "I didn't think there'd be any time difference from the travelling, so I didn't make factor that into the seal when I..."

"And I'll keep killing him till I know he's dead for sure." Grimmjow tapped the hilt of his sword feeling content at his upcoming fight. "I wonder if I'll..."

"Shut up!" Sasuke yelled loudly, drowning all three of their voices.

"Oh?" Grimmjow blinked. "You're pretty grumpy for a princess."

While the other two brats laughed, Sasuke looked straight at Grimmjow and said, "Are we really opening the seal to go back?"

"That's up to the blond idiot," Grimmjow said.

"What about Aizen? You always said you'd make him pay." When the other two brats stilled and opened their mouths to speak, Sasuke shot them a quelling look. "What do you really want to do right now, Grimmjow?"

Grimmjow stared up at the unchanging night sky of Hueco Mundo for a long moment before he finally made his choice.


	16. Epilogue

"Chains, seal!" Glowing golden chains rattled into existence, their sharp ends piercing the broken body in front of them.

Blue flames engulfed the chained target with a crackle and lit up the shattered base that they had been fighting in.

When the flames vanished and the others moved to inspect the ashes left behind, Grimmjow watched Orochimaru's newly freed soul fragment screech as ribbons of energy bound it's movement.

"We did it!" A red haired teen said with triumph, wiping away the blood that caked his hands. "That was the last of that old relic, right?"

A black haired girl, much older that then redhead, looked at the ashes with spinning red eyes as her fingers tapped a small screen. "This was definitely the last of him," she said, when she looked at the small screen. "Confirmation just came in from HQ. The cursed sigil in Konoha has disappeared completely."

The redhead whooped in delight. "Take that snake bastard. Our ancestors can finally be at peace because we've sent every last piece of you to the after life."

"Stop moving around so much," the youngest member of the team, a pink haired teen, said with a tired sigh. "I just healed your injuries."

The redhead huffed and pushed the younger teen away. "Don't nag, Sasori. We've just accomplished our families' sacred duty. A duty that has been passed down for eight generations!"

"You've reopened your back wound," Sasori pointed out with a grimace.

The Uchiha of the group, and the eldest, pushed the redhead to sit. "Don't make Sasori do extra work by being such a careless idiot. Aunty will lecture us over dinner."

"Mom won't do that," the redhead groused as Sasori placed green glowing hands on his back. "We'll be celebrating for days because of this. Hey Grimmjow, what do you want to eat when we get back home? Mom will probably make us fish curry if we get back early enough."

Grimmjow kept his eyes fixed on the bound piece of Orochimaru's decaying soul that hovered in the air.

"Orochimaru is finally gone." The Uchiha said, "Does that mean you are leaving as well?"

"What?" the redhead yelled. "Don't be stupid Minako, Grimmjow isn't leaving..."

Minako covered his mouth with a gloved hand and looked right at Grimmjow with normal blue eyes. "Thank you for all your help, Grimmjow."

Grimmjow scoffed. "The fuck are you talking about?"

Minako gave him a small smile and jabbed the redhead in the side. "Say your goodbyes, Kurama."

"But," Kurama said, his blue eyes so similar to Minako's yet so much more prone to emotional dramatics. He pushed Sasori away and turned to Grimmjow. "Are you really leaving?"

"I've removed every last trace of that snake bastard from the living world," Grimmjow said with a careless shrug.

"Don't g..."

Minako covered Kurama's mouth again and said, "You know where to find us if you change your mind." She bowed and dragged the teary-eyed redhead away leaving Grimmjow with the last member of the team.

With green eyes and bright pink hair, both unique shades that he hadn't seen together on a living person in decades, the youngest group member stared at him.

"Get lost," Grimmjow said in annoyance.

"Are they here?"

"Who, you stupid brat?" Grimmjow huffed in annoyance.

Sasori's green eyes widened in amusement. "Whoever you're always talking to when you're alone."

Grimmjow blinked.

"I always wondered why you went out alone outside of missions." The boy grinned. "I followed you once." Before Grimmjow could reply, the teen laughed as he turned to follow the other two. "Let's meet again in the future, Grimmjow."

Sakura chuckled as she landed beside Grimmjow, not looking a day over eighteen. "He's just like me."

Grimmjow glanced at her. "Because he's flat-chested?"

Sakura snarled and smacked his arm as she readjusted her red outfit. "My boobs were beautiful when I got older. Just because I'm back to my teenage form after dying doesn't mean..."

Grimmjow tuned out her rant and turned to the chained soul fragment. "That's definitely the last piece of snake freak?"

Sasuke nodded.

Grimmjow sighed. "Anticlimactic as hell."

"Hell wasn't anticlimactic," Naruto piped up as he prodded the soul fragment. "Aizen was."

Grimmjow grimaced at the reminder.

"It's been centuries since we dealt with Aizen," Sakura said and flicked her long pink hair back. "Get over it."

"He was supposed to be a God!" Grimmjow snarled back. "That fight should have been epic. I got cheated then and now."

"If it wasn't for Aizen, we wouldn't have known how to come visit you like this." Sasuke said with a pointed look. "And Orochimaru gave you a fight than spanned centuries! Eight generations of our descendants have had to search and destroy his soul fragments after we died."

"Was this really a fight?" Grimmjow groused.

Sasuke stared at him blandly. "You regenerated an arm. Minako used those accursed blue flames that she should never have learnt and Sasori is the only reason that Kurama wasn't crippled."

"Poor Sasori," Sakura said, "Having to pick up the slack of those two cousins."

"Don't be a creepy granny."

"You're just cranky because your bloodline merged with Naruto's in Minako. You're both family now." Sakura grinned. "And how can I not be proud of my descendants? Especially someone who mastered the Sakura Style at such a young age. Did you see how perfectly he timed his explosions with his weapon swings?"

"It's too self-centred to name an entire fighting style after yourself."

"I invented it, what else was I supposed to name it?" Sakura retorted.

"And your bad naming skills got passed down as well. Sasori!" Sasuke said, apparently not quite finished with taunting Sakura. "Why would they name him after that puppet?"

"At least, it's not _Kurama_. Sasori works for him," Sakura said with a shrug. "He honours the Haruno name. Did you see him activated his Yin Seal and..."

Thankfully before she could bore them with more talk of her descendant, a flare of light made them all turn to Naruto. Naruto, who had been busy with his seal work near the soul fragment, grinned as he said, "Good news, I know where Orochimaru's soul has finally gone."

"What's the bad news?" Sasuke asked.

"Who said there was bad news?" Naruto waved his hand in the air dismissively. "No, I have even better news. We're going to have open a path to this new place."

Grimmjow perked up with interest. "New place?"

"Definitely not your old world," Naruto said with bright eyes. "And definitely not our usual afterlife."

Sakura leaned forward with interest. "A new place. I wonder how it compares to everything we've seen."

"There's only one way to find out," Sasuke said, his purple ringed eyes already glowing and ready to open a path to a new dimension. He turned to Grimmjow, "Unless you want to stay here?"

Grimmjow rolled his eyes. "Who'd want to say here with that boring bunch?"

"You keep complaining, but no one asked you to stay with our descendants for eight generations," Sakura said blandly. "We removed your seals ages ago. You could have searched for Orochimaru all by yourself."

"Orochimaru was always trying to kidnap one of them!" Grimmjow retorted. "Why waste time searching when he made things easy for me?"

Sakura smirked, looking unconvinced.

Sasuke's eyes glowed and the air around them rippled in a haze of energy. "Get ready to move."

"If you miss them too much, we'll come back," Naruto said as a long rip appeared in front of them, the teasing in his voice hard to miss. "Hey, wait for us!"

Unconcerned by whatever lay ahead, Grimmjow jumped into the rip, knowing that the stupid brats wouldn't be far behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I started writing this story, I had challenged myself to use a crazy idea and write a plausible story in 15 chapters/50,000 words. And I sort of managed it?
> 
> Another challenge was to finish this story in a month (as my 2011 FanNoWriMo) and that was a spectacular fail. But, better late than never, right?
> 
> Either way, I hope you enjoyed this story.


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